Posted at 9:00 a.m.
The last time we interviewed Lysandre Ménard was in the taxi that took her to Trudeau airport. We were in 2016. She flew to France to promote the film Augustine’s Passion with her acting partner Céline Bonnier and director Léa Pool, just before attending the Gala du Cinéma Québécois where she was nominated in the category of best supporting role.
In his first official album, Without forgettingLysandre – she removes her family name from the pop sphere – did not want to highlight her virtuosity at the piano.
“I’m not yet in the mood for a first solo album on the piano. After all these years rehearsing alone, I was thirsty for collaborations and music with friends. I also wanted to be more in pop and poetry, ”explains the one who cites Beach House, Feist and Fleetwood Mac, but also Ravel, among her influences.
Lysandre was part of the group The Loodies, she toured with Klô Pelgag, but it’s a completely different exhibition to release a first album with her name and her face. However, Lysandre does not feel so much pressure. She considers that it is the natural sum of all her experiences, in particular as an actress and as a soloist, which has multiplied the competitions. It’s even rather salutary to assert herself as an author and composer, she who has interpreted so many classic pieces that date back hundreds of years. “Speaking up makes me feel good,” she says.
Memory
Lysander doesn’t see herself so much as a singer. Rather like a narrator at the service of words. The title of his album, Without forgetting, has a deep meaning.
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, THE PRESS
Lysander
I am obsessed with memory.
Lysander
After a concussion caused by an unfortunate fall in 2019, Lysandre found that she was struggling to memorize certain pieces, she who had already done a 75-minute solo recital “without score” to complete her bachelor’s degree at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. . “When you know you have a good memory and it’s failing you, it’s scary to lose it. »
When she sings “Where are you? Can you hear me ? » in his song The rose garden, Lysandre speaks to her grandmother Marie-Rose, who left in 2018. “At the end of her life, she was also the victim of a fall which affected her memory, says her granddaughter. She no longer recognized me, but when I played the piano for her, she came back among us. Despite her aphasia, she said, “It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful.” She also sang songs from her childhood. »
Listen to an excerpt from The rose garden, whose introduction is reminiscent of Beach House :
All these events pushed Lysandre to do a second “more theoretical” master’s degree in England (after a first in chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music in London). “My thesis was on collective memory in music. How the brain reacts to parts. »
Lysandre even collaborated with BRAMS, the International Brain, Music and Sound Research Laboratory. from the University of Montreal, specializing in research centered on “musical cognition”.
women past and present
There are many other women – in spirit or in body – on Without forgetting. Starting with Lysandre’s sisters who appear in the clip of the title track with archival footage of their childhood.
Lysandre devotes two songs to immortal poetesses, namely Sylvia Plath and Marie Uguay. On Plath, Lysandre plays the guitar – she recently learned to play this instrument. She confides sharing with Sylvia Plath the impression of feeling misunderstood. On UguayLysandre is sorry that the Quebec poet Marie Uguay died so young (at the age of 26) and she pays tribute to her maritime collection the afterlife.
The femininity of Without forgetting also shines with the brilliant new-generation singer-songwriters that Lysandre has invited to the studio, including Ariane Roy and Lou-Adriane Cassidy. Their friendship was born during a joint residency at the Petite-Vallée festival, in which Anatole also took part (Alexandre Martel, director of Without forgetting).
All are reunited (with N Nao, Sam Gougou and Étienne Dupré) in this video shot for the song Tintagel at the famous Pantoum studio, located in Quebec, which Lysandre frequents regularly.
” All women are queens,” proclaims Lysander in the magical chorus of Tintagel, the name of a famous castle located in Cornwall, England. The lyrics challenge the myth of Tristan and Iseult united by a love potion. Basically, Lysandre laments, Iseult never consented to this love and even to her own life…
Lysandre points out that she wrote and composed her album in the summer of 2020 at a time when she realized that several women around her had been victims of sexual misconduct during the wave of denunciations.
A horrible period, she recounts, weighing her words… before concluding: “All together, we can change things. »
Lysandre will give two launch shows, at the Fairmount in Montreal (April 5) and at the Pantoum in Quebec (March 31). This Friday and Saturday, she opens for Half Moon Run in Sainte-Thérèse and Brossard. Finally, this spring she will accompany on stage (as a musician) Klô Pelgag and her friend Helena Deland.