Appeasement: that’s the word that comes to mind when you listen to Andréanne A. Malette’s new album. Disturbed gardens is the soft and luminous reflection of a long inner quest, which began in Alaska and ended in the jungle of Costa Rica.
Andréanne A. Malette laughingly points out to us that her album comes out… on the same day as Taylor Swift’s! “She announced her date after me too!” » The singer-songwriter admires the American star, not so much for her music, which she doesn’t really know, but as a model of an artist and businesswoman who is accountable to no one.
It has also been operating independently for a long time. Disturbed gardens is her fourth album since she participated in Star Academy in 2012, and the third that she released as a self-production. “The period when I was under contract with a label, Productions J, lasted just two or three years,” she emphasizes.
If the artist has firmly held the reins of his career for 10 years, his personal emancipation has been a longer process. She already recounted her great shedding in her previous album Sitka, created after an introspective trip to Alaska. But it’s really sure Disturbed gardens that the result is felt, thanks among other things to the TVA survival show, Get me out of here!, which she won last year. This experience in the jungle of Costa Rica was “the last big blow of repair”.
“That led me to buy a house in the countryside, where this album was created. Sitka was colder, Nordic, percussive. He is more into flowers and light. »
Extract of The horizonby Andréanne A. Malette
Praise of imperfection
This return to nature, alone, was beneficial for both the musician and the woman. Not only did she understand that she could create happiness without having to “break her heart”, but she also gave herself the right to review the so-called normal order of things.
“I had learned that you had to be in a relationship to have a house, then after babies, dogs… There, I am the single woman who buys a house, I am always in hose boots with my chainsaw! I’m dying. » After the apartment in the city, the calm of nature allowed him to settle down. And being single in a house helped her create, since she was able to play music…all the time.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Andréanne A. Malette
I have total freedom. The piano is in my living room and I play until 3 a.m., I bought myself a drum, and I can sing! It’s stupid, I’m a singer, and I never sang because I was afraid of disturbing people.
Andréanne A. Malette
The very beautiful title of the album, Disturbed gardensis taken from the song by Francis Cabrel The rest of the time, which she also reproduces magnificently. But if in his text the French singer evokes the antics of two lovers who come to “crush the flowers and disturb the garden”, these words resonated differently with Andréanne A. Malette.
Extract of The rest of the timeAndréanne A. Malette
“It’s the interior garden that we accept with its imperfections, and we have to find a certain beauty through that. That’s it Disturbed gardens : my head, my body, my life, all this peace with who I am. It’s the opposite of a royal court with well-trimmed cedars. It will grow as it grows! »
Andréanne A. Malette found peace by letting her “deep naturalness” rise. On the album, this is reflected in the infinite sweetness of his voice, in the warmth of the transverse flute, in the elevation of the string arrangements.
Created quickly, Disturbed gardens is therefore the album of letting go, and also that of collaboration. “I have more confidence, I have less need to prove that I can do it on my own. » It’s also the one that cost her the most, says the producer and director, who once again co-directed with her partner of three albums, Antoine Lachance, laughing.
Learning
Andréanne A. Malette has said a lot that it was during the filming of Get me out of here! that she gave herself for the first time the right to shine and reach the limits of her abilities. This is the great learning that she gained from this adventure. “I am convinced that I would be better than I am today if I had not tried all these years not to bother. »
She was combative because she wanted to surpass herself, but also to present her $100,000 prize to the Group of Homes for Women Victims of Domestic Violence. The cause is close to her heart, and she addresses the subject in a moving way. At the foot of the big oak. “ My love, you don’t need / To close the roof of the aviary / So that it holds me ”, she sings.
Excerpt fromAt the foot of the big oakby Andréanne A. Malette
“This idea of being constrained, of constantly calculating what face you are going to walk on for fear that it will blow up, that was a lot of years of my life,” she confides. This is no longer the case, but “the post-traumatic shock remains” and she now chooses the members of her entourage based on their competence, of course, but also… their kindness. “That’s my number one criterion. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Andréanne A. Malette
Andréanne A. Malette has already started her tour, but the one who describes herself first and foremost as a creator has a thousand projects in mind. His show Campfire, which she filmed during the pandemic, will soon be broadcast on TVA. And she will do for the 11e consecutive year the staging of the Never Too Early project, with young people aged 14 to 17, at the Granby International Song Festival.
She hopes that the album will reach the ears that need to hear it, because she is convinced that however intimate it may be, what it conveys is universal. From one album to another, the 35-year-old singer still exposes herself quite a bit.
“As an artist, we have the possibility of making beauty out of ugliness. It’s a great chance to be able to take what is most troubled, and make a flower with it. »
Song
Disturbed gardens
Andréanne A. Malette
NIA Productions