From her time with Eric's Trip to her decades of work as a solo artist, Julie Doiron's delicately resilient voice and songwriting have been the cornerstones of her music. The haunting, whispery songs on her 1996 debut album, Broken Girl -- which arrived just before Eric's Trip broke up -- hinted at just how different the music she made on her own would be from the work with her former band. Though she occasionally returned to rock, most notably on 2000's Juno Award-winning collaboration Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars, the minimalist approach the singer/songwriter and photographer took on albums such as 2002's Heart and Crime and 2004's Goodnight Nobody allowed her to add elements of folk, country, and blues gracefully and let the honesty in her voice take the lead. That honesty made her a sought-after collaborator with artists ranging from Gord Downie to Mount Eerie, whose 2008 album Lost Wisdom (and its 2019 sequel, Lost Wisdom, pt. 2) used the poignant purity of her voice brilliantly. Following 2012's So Many Days -- one of several albums produced by her former bandmate Rick White -- Doiron didn't make another solo album until 2021's I Thought of You, a quietly triumphant return that added some swagger to her sound.

Born in Moncton, New Brunswick, Doiron started playing piano at age ten, saxophone at 12, and guitar at 15. In 1990, when she was an 18 year-old photography student at Mount Allison University, she joined her then-boyfriend White in the acclaimed indie rock band Eric's Trip as its bassist and vocalist. That year, she also founded the Sappy Records label, which released Eric's Trip's music on cassette and vinyl and also issued Doiron's largely acoustic solo work as Broken Girl. These included 1993's single Dog Love, Pt. 2 and 1995's Nora, songs from which appeared on April 1996's full-length debut, Broken Girl.

Not long after Broken Girl's arrival, Eric's Trip broke up. For her second solo album, August 1997's Loneliest in the Morning, Doiron recorded with prominent indie rock producers and musicians like Doug Easley, Davis McCain, Giant Sand's Howe Gelb, and the Grifters' Dave Shouse. Two years later, Tree Records released the EP Will You Still Love Me?, and Doiron also contributed vocals to the Wooden Stars album from that year, The Moon. She took her collaboration with the band to the next level with 2000's Julie Doiron and the Wooden Stars, a set of melancholy rock that earned critical acclaim as well as a Juno Award for Best Independently Released album.

In 2001, along with contributing vocals to Snailhouse's album The Opposite Is Also True and reuniting with Eric's Trip for a series of live dates, Doiron issued the French-language album Désormais on Jagjaguwar that August. Following April 2002's stripped-down Heart and Crime, in 2003 she collaborated on a split album with Okkervil River for Spanish label Acuarela and worked with Gordon Downie on his album Battle of the Nudes, one of many appearances Doiron made on his work over the years. For September 2004's Goodnight Nobody, she traveled to Paris and recorded with Herman Düne, adding touches of country and blues to her stripped-down style. Doiron also appeared on Herman Düne's 2005 album Not on Top and collaborated with Frederick Squire on the project Shotgun Jaybird.

After reviving Sappy Records in 2006, Doiron drafted her former Eric's Trip bandmates Mark Gaudet, Chris Thompson, and White to work on her next solo album, marking the first time all four had recorded together in a decade. Produced by White, January 2007's Woke Myself Up combined the searing rock of Eric's Trip with her own minimalist approach and earned a place on the Polaris Music Prize shortlist. The following year, she worked with Phil Elverum and Squire on Mount Eerie's searching album Lost Wisdom. Doiron once again worked with White on March 2009's I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day, another set of songs teetering between folky introspection and indie rock. That year, she also collaborated with Squire as Calm Down It's Monday, who released a split EP that featured alternate versions of songs from I Can Wonder What You Did with Your Day. She and Squire were joined by Daniel Romano for that December's Daniel, Fred Julie, an album of traditional and original folk songs released by You've Changed Records.

Doiron resurfaced in 2012 with more solo and collaborative projects. In September, her band Julie the Wrong Guys -- which also featured Eamon McGrath, Mike Peters and Jaye Schwarzer -- released its debut single "Heartbeats" in September. That October, she issued the reflective album So Many Days, her third album to be produced by White. The following year, she sang on Romano's album Come Cry With Me, and in 2015, she started a series of Spanish-language releases for Acuarela with the single Canta en Español. Doiron also formed Weird Lines with Jon McKiel, C.L. McLaughlin, Michael Duguay, James Anderson, and Chris Meaney, and the project's self-titled debut appeared in 2016. Collaborations dominated her body of work for the rest of the decade, including Julie the Wrong Guys' 2017 eponymous debut album, a reunion with Elverum on 2019's Lost Wisdom, Pt. 2, and an appearance on Quebecois singer/songwriter Dany Placard's 2020 album J'connais rien à l'astronomie. Though Doiron issued several installments of her Acuarela series during this time, it wasn't until 2021 that she returned with an album. Arriving in November, I Thought of You featured contributions from Romano and Placard and ranged from country and folk-inspired songs to psychedelic pop. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi