It is his most pop album, as well as his most personal, according to Pierre Kwenders, “otherwise why name it José Louis and the Paradox of Love “, “José Louis” being inscribed on his baptistery. “It’s my story that I tell, like an open book. A way of saying: take me as I am. And if you find yourself somewhere in these songs, I will have done something good. Masterful, this album. The most pop, but above all, the most danceable of his discography, a disc which appears at a time when electronic music from the African continent has finally won the favor of Western music lovers.
It will take more than a sweeping sweep for this space where Pierre Kwenders gave us an appointment to become the cultural center, coupled with a nightclub with terrace, of which he and his team have been dreaming for a few years. The musician has set up his makeshift office in a corner where boxes of audio cables, stacked chairs, a faded sofa and a sound console are piled up. Three collaborators hold a meeting in the large adjacent room which, thirty years ago, welcomed the dancers in this high place of the vie de Nuit Montrealer that was the Di Salvio club.
“I came here already, in my twenties, recalls Kwenders. It’s good to revive places like that”, even temporarily: the two-storey building, located on boulevard Saint-Laurent, south of rue Prince-Arthur, will meet the peak of demolition workers within two years. The project will have to find a new home base, “but anyway, with Moonshine, we are used to changing places! he says, alluding to the monthly and nomadic parties of the collective he leads with friend Hervé Kalongo.
The last edition of this festival highlighting diversity through music took place last weekend — Moonshine always takes place after the full moon — in one of the large halls of the new building of the Agora de la danse which, incidentally , once home to theafter hour SONA. “It’s symbolic! notes Kwenders, who, seven years ago, started these marginal celebrations that have now become an international brand. Moonshine events, which broadcast electronic club music inspired by musical trends from Africa, the Caribbean and South America, have been held in Los Angeles, Lisbon, Paris, London, New York, among other cities. hospitable for advanced music. The collective also offers radio programs on the famous stations Rinse FM and NTS Live.
A bridge between two worlds
What to remember first José Louis and the Paradox of Love, Pierre Kwenders’ third album, is the long-awaited reconciliation between his two creative personalities, the singer-songwriter and the DJ. While trying to fuse indie rock, electronic grooves and African musical references on his first two albums, Kwenders is now hitting the dance floor with the songs from this visionary album in its fusion of Congolese rumba, neo-R&B and house. . “I really managed to reconcile these two worlds, that of Pierre-le-singer that we know, and Pierre-le-DJ that many don’t know. A bridge between two worlds. »
The affirmation is launched from the opening of the album, a long percussive house jam titled LES (Freedom Equality Sagacity), co-produced by American house veteran King Britt, with collaboration from Arcade Fire friends Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. More than nine minutes of groove as an introduction, it’s ballsy! And it’s intentional, confirms Kwenders: “I have friends who said to me: ‘You’re crazy to do that!’ And yet, it’s something very Congolese, because in rumba albums, there’s the title song of the disc — which we call the “generic” — which never lasts less than ten minutes. This song is kind of my credits. »
Gold, past THE., Pierre Kwenders softens. Softens, even, coiled in an electronic R&B with minimalist orchestrations which, almost everywhere, evoke with extreme finesse the groove of Congolese rumba. In the suspended and languorous rhythm of the ballad heart beat (in duet with the singer Anaïs), as well as in the very theme of the brilliant Papa Wembaa production by Tendai “Baba” Maraire, from the American experimental hip-hop project Shabazz Palaces.
Tributes
Papa Wemba is an icon of Congolese rumba to whom Kwenders wanted to pay tribute: “He did incredible things for Congolese music, he explains. Any Congolese artist of my generation has grown up with his music, mine being very much inspired by his work, especially in its textures. The album also contains a tribute to his mother, who we hear wishing her son a happy birthday in a message left on her voicemail. “I talked a lot about women in my life in my albums, recalls Pierre Kwenders. The influence that my aunts, my grandmother had on me… I remember, I was in London when I was 34and anniversary. Later, in Lisbon, with Branko [réalisateur de l’album], I had this idea of making a song to answer my mother, to talk about her love, but also to answer her doubts about my life and career choices. Me, I studied accounting, I had a career. So, when your son comes to you and says “Here, I want to make music”, it’s a shock, all the same! »
This is the great success of this album, its ability to be as pop as it is avant-garde, as poignant as it is danceable. “There has always been a kind of melancholy in my songs. By dint of listening to people like Aznavour, I ended up being affected! reveals Kwenders. But I think there is above all a form of joy, subtle, in this album. The joy of asserting oneself, of knowing that one finally manages to understand oneself, and above all, the joy of being able to share it with people. »