Really sad, enigmatic music. It is with these dark adjectives that Anna Arrobas describes the ten shoegaze-tinged folk and dream pop ballads of the remarkable Made to Touch, a first album released in October that she is preparing to premiere on stage at the Festival Triste.
“This kind of emotion directs and animates my songs, which often have a connection with love and grief,” says the artist. According to her, Someone Waiting would thus be the most serious piece, and all the more striking, of the disc. “I tell the point of view of someone who is in love, but aware that it will not last, convinced that the end is coming. Lucid, perhaps also anxious, Anna Arrobas thinks a lot about everything that dies and stops, inevitably.
“Everyone thinks of love as being eternal. Is it really true? she asks. Even more, the musician admits to being tormented by the future and what is likely to happen… to become insomniac. “We are aware that death is coming. For some, like me, it’s a battle to accept it. »
Anna Arrobas readily describes herself as a fatalistic person who is very sensitive to what surrounds her. But rather than languishing alone in her corner, this one uses sadness as a formidable creative tool. “Instead of sinking into a self-destructive cycle, I capture these emotions and try to make something beautiful out of them”, says the one who refuses to conceive of melancholy as a threatening cloud that would dictate her life.
In this regard, she has immense admiration for the German folk artist Sibylle Baier, whose compositions evoke loss with great maturity. “His only album, Color Green, has influenced my music for a long time. She talks about feeling the pain of having lost something, of a love that has already ended before it could begin, ”says Anna Arrobas touched by this simple evocation.
Conversely, she is equally impressed when her audience reports that they have been moved to tears by her music. “I realize that I am not alone in this and that many of us have experienced difficult things and recognize ourselves in suffering”, believes Anna Arrobas. According to her, listening to sad melodies during moments of depression is life-saving. “It may seem funny to do it publicly, but music is a way of transmitting and sharing your emotions,” continues the singer-songwriter.
In unison in the dark
The very process of creating the album emanates from a gloomy period, greatly disrupted by the pandemic, which will ultimately prove fruitful. “At the beginning, I worked alone with my partner Shane Hoy, until Pierre Guerineau, also known under the pseudonym Feu St-Antoine [Essaie Pas, Marie Davidson & L’Oeil Nu] from Éditions Appaerent, invites us into the studio,” she recalls.
At this moment, the couple met fellow label members Jesse Osborne-Lanthier and Asaël R. Robitaille (also musicians with Marie Davidson & L’Oeil Nu), who would join Anna Arrobas’ project. “Together, we put a lot of effort into the recording and production to spruce up what was originally going to be a minimalist record,” she adds. Being locked up at five in a small room to play in confused circumstances, in times of confinement, can therefore cause the sublime.
Now that the time has come to give life to Made to Touch in front of spectators, Anna Arrobas could not be happier. What’s more, during the Festival Triste. “I like that the team disseminates information on mental health. It’s essential, yet it’s the first time I’ve seen such a thing, that an event focuses on an a priori negative emotion, ”she says. And to insist: “We all need sadness. »
Although she finds it difficult to admit it, Anna Arrobas is a nervous, nervous artist. “You can feel the excitement in my voice when I sing on stage. It’s a way of releasing my emotions,” she concludes. To transform the ugly into the beautiful, too.