French newspaper Le Monde is reporting the death of revered French-Portuguese singer Catherine Ribeiro, a favourite of Kim Gordon, Weyes Blood, and Circuit des Yeux. She was 82 years old.

Ribeiro first found fame as an actress, starring as a farmer's wife in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 caper Les Carabiniers, but her move into music in the mid-'60s would prove to be her true calling. Having found her feet with a series of singles for Paris-based record label Barclay – mostly folk songs, including French-language versions of Bob Dylan's "When the Ship Comes In" and "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" – Ribeiro formed a band with experimental musician and instrument-builder Patrice Moullet, and reinvented herself as a progressive and radical voice.

Abandoning their original name of Catherine Ribeiro + 2Bis after their self-titled 1969 debut, they rebranded as Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes and went on to release eight more albums before disbanding in 1981. Their fourth album, Paix, is often touted as their masterpiece – a startling record that stares into the cosmic void and peaks on side B with the 25-minute "Un jour... la Mort".

Paix was reissued in 2018 by Mexican Summer's Anthology Recordings imprint, alongside two other long out-of-print Alpes albums, helping Ribeiro's music find a whole new audience.

Ribeiro also released a slew of solo albums, including tributes to Edith Piaf (1977's Le Blues de Piaf) and Jacques Prévert (1978's Jacqueries), and, in 1999, published an autobiography detailing her difficult early childhood in war-ravaged Paris.

“I’ve always let intense emotional moments guide me," she wrote in the 2018 liner notes. "I’ve always written in one go and refused to hold my head in my hands, or to change a single word.”

Respect, and au revoir.