A surprising lack of real information about Esthero exists on and around the net, so I will do my best here to quantify all that I've learned about her since I first became enamoured with her voice during the summer of 1998 upon the release of her first single, Country Livin' (The World I Know).

Esthero, whose real name is Jen-Bea Englishman, was born in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, on December 23, 1978. During the years following her birth yet preceeding her leaving home in 1995, she displayed talents for singing, playing guitar, and knowing her way around a sequencer and a mixing board. At age 16, when she left home, until she was signed by Sony Records in 1996, she bummed around Toronto-area coffeehouses and any other places she could perform. She must've done this frequently to get the attention of Sony, and with the addition of her friend Doc, Esthero (also the name of the band) was signed.

The duo holed themselves up in a Toronto recording studio for about a year and recorded Breath From Another, with Jen-Bea on vocals, guitar, synths and miscellania, and Doc on programming, mixing, sequencing, and the occasional backup vocal. The completed product was delivered to Sony in late 1997 and the song Country Livin' (The World I Know) was released as a single in April 1998 (on the Short of Breath promo). It received impressive airplay in Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh and of course her native Toronto, and in nearby Montréal. It did well enough that the album was released on schedule in April 1998 and was accompanied by a short tour of the northern midwest United States and all over Ontario and Quebéc.

The album itself is a masterpiece meshing of trip hop, hip hop, jazz, and even a bit of folk. All the tracks feature light acoustic and electric guitars to accentuate Jen-Bea's sensuous vocals and all the tracks heavily feature Doc's beat programming and vocal processing. Several of the tracks feature guest rap soliloquies from other Toronto hip hop scene fixtures Michie Mee and Bratticus. The second track on the album, the hard-rocking yet ghetto fabulous Heaven Sent was made into a music video, which unfortunately never really made much of a splash on MTV in the United States, though it was in heavy rotation on Canada's superior (IMO, anyway) music television station MuchMusic.

The video for Heaven Sent finally gives us a view of who has been singing such lovely melodies on the album and the singles -- a short, crop-haired redhead in a tank top and a long skirt. Her full lips belt out the lyrics about plotting murder while Doc rides around on a cartoon-like motorcycle, and a crowd of people menace Jen-Bea's alter ego, who seems to have dropped her purse. The video winds down with Jen-Bea lying atop a grand piano, writhing around and generally looking as sexy as a fleet of Ferraris driven by girls you went to high school with and couldn't even speak to because of the depths of your crush on them.

The best comparison I can make to Jen-Bea's appearance is this: take Pink, make her more earthy, somehow more vulgar, and a little bit sweeter, and you'd have Jen-Bea, or Esthero, whichever your preference. She is, IMO, extremely attractive.

Her voice, on the other hand, is indescribable. The best I can do by way of comparison is to take the best elements of the voices of Beth Gibbons (Portishead) and Lou Rhodes (Lamb), combine them, and make them about ten times better and more toned. It's as though Jen-Bea's voice hits the Soloflex in its spare time because it's unbelievably amazing and strong enough knock you right on your ass the first time you really hear it.

--

The composition fractured me
Yet, I pieced into the girl I long to be
When I fall apart that's when the notes will swallow me

Long as I have my voice, I don't need arms to hold
Long as you have your voice, you don't need arms to hold
You'll never need arms to hold you
You'll never need arms to hold me

-- Swallow Me --

Esthero has made a great many contributions to other musical endevours, far too many to accurately list, though I will name as many as I can remember here.

• Song for Holly with Danny Saber
• Final home (also music video) with DJ Krush
• Weekendz (also music video), Keep It Movin' and Complete Beloved with Black-Eyed Peas
• Well, well (I feel you) and I'm like a bird with Nelly Furtado
• Balmes (a better life) with Ian Pooley
• The universal quest with Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes
• Tao of now with Saul Williams
• Don't mean a thing and The hero with J. Englishman (her brother!)
• Don't wanna be your slave with Michie Mee
• When I fall in love with Bratticus
• Run for your life with Jarvis Church
• Priceless with Rascalz
• The tree knows everything with Everything But The Girl
• Conquest of the irrational with DJ Vadim
• Too rude with Carmen Rizzo
• White rabbit with Blue Man Group
• How could I? with John Forte
• One life with Last Emperor and Poetic
• Every day is a holiday (with you) with Sean Lennon
• Heaven with Sugar Ray

That's about all the collaborations I can recall or find listed anywhere... /msg me if I missed any (which I'm sure I have). Now for the official discography:

SHORT OF BREATH (Digipak promo CD)

April 7, 1998
Sony/The WORK Group

1. Breath from another
2. Heaven sent
3. Country livin' (the world I know)
4. That girl

BREATH FROM ANOTHER (CD)

April 28, 1998
Sony/The WORK Group

1. Breath from another (feat. Michie Mee & Bratticus)
2. Heaven sent
3. Anywayz
4. That girl
5. Country livin' (the world I know)
6. Filpher overture
7. Half a world away (feat. Michie Mee)
8. Lounge (two versions of this song exist; one features a Hammond organ solo, the other doesn't)
9. Superheroes
10. Indigo boy
11. Swallow me

HEAVEN SENT (CD single)

July 21, 1998
Sony/The WORK Group

1. Heaven sent (Album version)
2. Heaven sent (Mad Professor Dub)
3. Breath from another (Pt. 7 and 11 (remix))
4. Breath from another (DJ Krust Sitting on Chrome Mix)
5. Breath from another (Orpheus Floating Mix)

TAKEN TO THE NEXT PHASE (Isley Brothers tribute) (CD EP)

August 24, 2004
Epic/Legacy Records

1. Tell of tales (tell me when you need it again)
2. Take me to the next phase (parts 1 and 2)
3. That lady (parts 1 and 2)
4. Tonight is the night (if I had you)
5. Summer breeze
6. Between the sheets
7. Footsteps in the dark
8. It's a new thing (it's your thing)
9. Harves for the world
10. Beauty in the dark (groove with you)

O.G. BITCH (CD EP)

August 31, 2004
Reprise Records

1. O.G. bitch (original version)
2. O.G. bitch (Smitty's deep guitar remix)
3. O.G. bitch (Smitty & Gabriel D. Vine's garage party remix)
4. O.G. bitch (moody-ass bitch remix)
5. O.G. bitch (speakeasy mix)
6. O.G. bitch (the orange factory mix)
7. O.G. bitch (Bill Hamel club mix)
8. I love you (non-album track)

WIKKED LIL' GRRRLS (CD)

April 26, 2005
Warner Brothers Records

1. We R in need of a musical revolution
2. Dragonfly's intro
3. Blanket me in you (never is so soon)
4. Everyday is a holday (with you) (feat. Sean Lennon)
5. Thank heaven 4 you
6. If tha mood (feat. Shakari Nite)
7. Bad boy Clyde
8. Beautiful lie
9. Junglebook (feat. André 3000)
10. My Honeybrown
11. Wikked lil' girls
12. Gone (feat. Cee-Lo Green)
13. My torture
14. Melancholy melody
15. Fastlane (feat. Jemeni and Jeleestone)
16. Dragonfly's outro
17. Brave bear woman (features only Esthero's mother in an answering machine message for about 20 seconds; she talks about what she was doing at the time -- listening to Justin Timberlake and drinking wine)

In 2003, Esthero contributed the track "Nearly Civilized" to the soundtrack for the Sony Playstation2 game "007: Nightfire," in which the song is featured as the main theme (apart from the standard James Bond theme, that is). The phrase "nearly civilized" appeared again during interludes on the Wikkid Lil Grrrls album a couple of years later. She has also contributed songs to the Love and Basketball and Down With Love soundtracks, appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Chris Rock's HBO series, and The Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn, among others.