Jolie Ruelle

Jolie Ruelle grew up in the rural surroundings of the Green Mountains. Introduced to piano at age three, her early traditional training inspired her love for sound. Later while taking voice and guitar lessons, she began song writing. After graduation, and traveling extensively throughout the U.S., Jolie attended Massachusetts College of Art. There she was introduced to studio recording. "My sound teacher once brought me on a sound walk through the city. We listened to everything as if it were a composition, as if each sound was planned and edited together in an audio program. The bus breaks screeching, the pigeons, conversations in the distance slowly approaching. I listened as it all fit perfectly together." Jolie quickly became interested in integrating the organic qualities of her instruments with electronic effects, and drum samples. Her music quickly shifted, focussing more on the textures qualities, and space of each sound. "Many of my songs don't have lyrics because I want the listener to connect with the sounds intuitively. It took me a while to get used to not singing words. I felt funny mouthing random sounds. Now I feel it?s liberating." During her final semester of college, Jolie and a fellow artist were awarded an art fellowship to travel throughout Ethiopia collecting stories and sounds onto minidisc, and video. For four months they ventured all over the country forming a library of media. Having recently returned to the U.S. Jolie and her partner are currently setting up a studio in Brooklyn New York, and working on editing the material they collected.