We know that songs are timeless when a new generation of artists does not hesitate to appropriate them.
Posted yesterday at 11:30 a.m.
That’s what happens with this Aquanaut 2022which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Ariane Moffatt’s first album: so many young artists have answered yes to the singer-songwriter’s invitation to revisit her founding work that certain songs (Focus, I’ll keep you with me, On your parallel, Skull fracture) even come back twice! A game of looks that makes the exercise even more convincing, giving each song a hyper personal angle, but also universal.
From Sophia Bel to P’tit Belliveau, from Thaïs to Narcisse, from Calamine to Robert Robert, nearly twenty have taken up the challenge of proofreading with as much enthusiasm as freedom. If the gently electro atmosphere of the original has been respected, each guest has added his mark, and we can recognize the different approaches of each – for example hyper techno with Anachnid, lyrical with Étienne Coppée or dancing with Claudia Bouvette.
That a repertoire inspires so many artists, and that its freshness has also transcended the decades, is frankly moving. And it is in this state of mind that you have to listen to this rather long album, interspersed with pleasant spoken interludes where Ariane Moffatt recounts the underside of the creation ofAquanaut 20 years ago.
Of course we want to go back to the originals, and of course the whole thing is uneven and stretches a bit with the repetitions. But these youthful songs exude the same irrepressible vital force as at the time, proof, if need be, that Ariane Moffatt is one of the most important artists of the last 20 years in Quebec. And that she has lost none of her relevance, still being a great unifier capable of bringing together tons of talent around her and reaching out to others.
This is a very fine quality: it’s called aging well.
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Aquanaut 2022
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