“When I first came here, I wasn’t a musician,” she says, almost surprised by the memory. Originally from Picardie, France, Barbier landed in Montréal in 2012 for a six-month internship at a music publishing company. But like so many Montréal transplants, six months quickly dissolved into something more like a calling. “When I was meeting people at the time in Montreal, like 12 years ago, every time I would ask ‘Do you play music?’, everyone would say yes. So I ended up saying ‘What do you play?’ instead, because I assumed everyone I was meeting was a musician.”

The city’s density of creative energy—and the easy, lived-in quality of its DIY scene—pulled her in. She picked up the bass, moved into a house full of musicians, and slowly realized she wasn’t going back to Paris anytime soon. “I couldn’t see myself go back and live in Paris in a tiny apartment… I just wanted to stay, even if it meant not having a perfect job.”

Her first formative years in Montréal came through Moss Lime and later PHERN, two scrappy bands that gave her the space to experiment and the confidence to trust her ear. From 2014 to 2017, she honed her instincts through jangly riffs, surf-rock sway, and the kind of messy, democratic decision-making that defines most young bands. When those projects came to a natural end, she found herself craving something more direct—something that reflected her own voice without compromise.

“It’s a bit selfish, but it’s just I have the last say on what direction the song is gonna go,” she laughs. “Obviously, I didn’t make it all alone, but it’s nice to be in charge.”

Going solo didn’t mean reinventing herself as a lone wolf. Instead, it simply reframed collaboration. Barbier now surrounds herself with a trusted circle who can challenge her ideas but still leave the final call in her hands. “There’s Ben Lalonde on the guitar… my husband Joe… my friend Claire, who first played guitar and now plays keyboard and flute and backup vocals… and on the drums there’s Thomas Molander and Samuel Gougoux. They share the job because they’re both very busy people.”

She lights up describing the give-and-take of this setup, how comfortable she feels saying no when something doesn’t fit. “My husband would sometimes be insistent, but I have the last word because it’s my band,” she says with another laugh. “So that’s pretty okay.”

That sense of self-possession extends to language, which has become a quiet but defining evolution in her music. Barbier’s debut, Have You Met Elliot?, was entirely in English. Her sophomore album, Regulus, introduced two French songs. Now, Panorama stretches further with three. “I guess initially it was out of shyness,” she says. “When I speak English, since it’s not my mother tongue, there’s some kind of filter… when it’s in French, it felt more serious. It had to be like really good poetry. I thought I wasn’t capable of writing something. But then I realized you can sing a song about whatever you like. There’s less distance. When it’s in French, it’s more personal.”