1969 album release | Connor Seidel discreet and everywhere at the same time

From Matt Holubowski to Charlotte Cardin, from Elliot Maginot to the Boulay sisters via Alicia Moffet, Claudia Bouvette and Soran: they have all worked for years with director, author and multi-instrumentalist Connor Seidel. His role is immense, yet his name is little known to the general public. But while he set up the Collective 1969, whose album was released on Tuesday, Seidel is seen a little more. Portrait of a handyman, as discreet as he is omnipresent.

Marissa Groguhe
The Press

He is the one who imagined the album 1969a tribute to seventies, but especially to the music that was born that year. He also brought together the 12 artists who formed the 1969 Collective: Half Moon Run, Ariane Moffatt, Safia Nolin, Matt Holubowski, Elliot Maginot, Louis-Jean Cormier, Philippe Brault, The Boulay sisters, Jason Bajada, Joseph Mihalcean, Claudia Bouvette and Elisapie. He is also the one who produced and co-wrote the vast majority of the songs on the album, in addition to playing several instruments and coordinating the administrative side of the project. Short, 1969 begins and ends with Connor Seidel.

However, the Montrealer has always been deliberately discreet. “I never really had the interest to have my musical project,” he says, sitting in the studio where he spends most of his time.

Black cap screwed on the head, checkered jacket on the back, Connor Seidel has the glance which smiles when it speaks about this passion born at the beginning of adolescence. A passion that led him to build a home studio in his West Island neighborhood and to record “all the little punk bands in the neighborhood”. From there, in an autodidact way, he traced his way to this career of director-author-musician-mixer-engineer.

create the magic

The Press benefited from the release of the album 1969 to talk with him at the Treehouse, his studio in a chalet surrounded by the forest, in Sainte-Adèle. A few minutes spent there are enough to understand why Seidel has adopted it as a creative space and why the artists who have passed there describe it as “magical”. The place was laid out in the 2010s by musician and filmmaker David Laflèche, who later partnered with Connor to keep the place running.

The Treehouse is far from the hubbub of everyday life. But the space just channels that “magic” that happens when a song is created. The real magician is Connor Seidel. Those who collaborate with him all say so. Starting with his lifelong ally, the one with whom it all started, Matt Holubowski.

After a chance meeting 10 years ago at a folk party, when neither had much experience, Connor made (in his parents’ basement) Matt Holubowski’s debut album, Ogen, Old Man (2014). Then, the next two, released in 2016 and 2020. For the 1969 Collective record, the duo collaborated on the song Towards beauty.

When Matt Holubowski’s career took off, his friend accompanied him on stage as a guitarist. When Matt had to be accompanied by more experienced musicians, under the advice of his record company, Connor had to be replaced. “I had a fear, but I told him and he replied: “Of course. I’m not a guitarist, I want to be a director,” says Matt Holubowski. This moment made me realize how much he is someone who understands the purity of art. »

Director and more

“Connor, he ticks all the boxes. The guy is truly a genius in every sense of the word, says Elliot Maginot, who performs the piece Provincetown on the album 1969 and whom we meet the day after our visit to the Treehouse. He knows everything there is to know, and if he doesn’t, the next day he’s going to be an expert. »

Elliot Maginot is also part of this group of friends-collaborators of Connor Seidel who, after a first meeting, never stopped working with him.

“He’s quite capable of being told when something doesn’t appeal to you, but if he comes up with an idea, it’s really because he thinks there’s something to add. Otherwise he lets things go and he just gives the push you need. And in the end, you tell yourself that you didn’t even know you were capable of doing that. »

1969

“I’m always looking for an excuse to work with new people and to keep working with my friends,” says Connor Seidel. And as an Anglo who works with Francophone artists, I always discover new things. The Boulay sisters showed me music that I didn’t know, like Jean-Pierre Ferland or Charlebois. I wondered why we didn’t make arrangements like we used to. »

Towards the end of 2019, the idea of ​​embarking on a unifying project around the 1970s germinated. A few calls later, the concept came to fruition. “During the process, each artist introduced me to projects from that era. And every time I looked at the creation dates, it was 1969. This concept of seventies became 1969.”

“When I need to put myself in neutral, when I need to meditate, I enter directly into this universe of seventies, says Elisapie, reached by telephone. I love Buffy Sainte-Marie or Nico or Mélanie. This album is a conversation about something that already fascinates me. »

In a very assumed way, 1969 took shape as a side project, not really intended for radio. The atmosphere is folk and discreet. The tempo encourages relaxation. Bossa-nova is sometimes invited, strings and flutes are often part of it. The Treehouse allowed some parts to be recorded outdoors, letting the perfect imperfections of nature sounds creep into the background. The whole thing has a “floral” air, as the director describes it.

Each artist was able to carry this basic idea where he wanted. Elliot Maginot explains that he was inspired by the city of Provincetown to tell the love story of another. Elisapie, on Ullutamaatsings of connection to the territory, loneliness and the search for sweetness.

“Connor had a big opening,” Elisapie said. We dive into a very precise universe, which speaks a little of the disarray of everything we live [chez les peuples autochtones]. But there was something very natural, there was a great adaptation on his part, a great listening. »

weaving the story

All tracks were recorded at the Treehouse. But no artist consulted the others or worked in collaboration. Connor was the common thread between all parts of this project. “I had to weave a story with these 13 songs, figure out how to make them all work together in the right rhythm to form this album. »

Connor Seidel does not imagine a sequel to 1969. no funky 1974 or new wave concept which would be called 1986. However, the idea of ​​the collective still hooks him and could take other forms, says the one who works on several artists’ projects in Montreal and Toronto.

One thing is certain, he still and always wants to collaborate, to join forces with others to create music. “I think what inspires me the most is when others are inspired. »

folk

1969

Collective

Simone Records