Marie-Claire Seguin's two masterpieces in 1978 and 1979

Here's a complete change in direction from the relentless fusion.

From Discogs:

Singer from Pointe-Aux-Trembles (Montréal), Québec, Canada.  Twin sister of Richard Séguin.

I've mentioned these frequently as two of the most perfect albums I've ever heard in my life in the domain of progressively-written singer-songwriter.  As such they compare with Wisse-Scheper Topaz' album from long ago, the stunning Nilsson-Tommy Korberg collaboration, or even to hell with it, Wigwam's string of brilliance with Pohjola culminating in 1974's Being-- well, I don't think actually any album could compare to that one in terms of pure progressive rock songwriting, along with their predecessors, Tombstone Valentine and Fairyport.  So I take that back.  Moroever I apologize sincerely to the prog gods for the sacrilege.

There are a bunch of familiar names from the seventies Canadian music scene here (specifically really the sui generis province of Quebec) including Neil Chotem who arranged the lot, Yvan Ouellet (who made the wonderful one-off Le Chant des Choses but who was a member of semi-prog outfit Ville Emard Blues Band) and plays the piano here and there, Serge Locat (known for his semi-good Transfert album), and even Harmonium's Serge Fiori contributed music too, along with flautist from Harmonium, Libert Subirana, though it seems most of the songs were written by her, along with a poet-lyricist (?) called Pedneault. Admittedly, the lyrics are wonderful too, with the achingly sincere emotions so characteristic of the times.  Compared to today's "I'm in love with your body."

The most stunning track from 1979 with its dreamy mellotron and advanced compositional structure, almost like a short story in the drama of the changes, is Ou est passe mon enfance (where did my childhood go):

It's hard for me to even imagine a song more beautiful and desirable than that one.

Like Icarus this is as high as we can get with music, as close we can get to the sun without melting our wings... and the fall back to earth is so painful...

The subsequent track is called A tous les mal-nees (i.e. to all those born unlucky):

In the beginning of course she made 4 records with her brother Richard.  Those are definitely not as good as these two, being mostly relatively generic and basic folk music, with occasional progressive touches, and in fact Richard's two solo albums which followed shortly after the dissolution of the sibling band are also disappointing--relative to Marie-Claire's two.  So she definitely won the brother-sister war of progressive songwriting as far as I'm concerned.  

Finally in the mid-80s she made another LP which was highly disappointing with almost none of the emotional depth of these two, and totally commercial, sad to say.  This is similar to the situation with another brilliant progressive Quebec songwriter, the very similar Fabienne Thibeault, who all should know.

From the 1978 album, the Requiem for the living:

Please enjoy this practically lost music... Today, no one can write music that is this beautiful, sorry to say.