Nova Scotian singer-songwriter Trevor Murphy offers the public of Coup de coeur francophone the honor of discovering the first live new songs fromArchivist, album from his pop-punk project Sluice released last Friday. From Halifax, where he gives us an interview, Murphy, a musician and entrepreneur trained at university in journalism, history and religious studies, describes the spirit of his project: “It’s taking my academic side, then my musical, and “smashing” the two together to create something that truly represents both sides of me! » Tasty raspberry, we assure you.
Before looking at the songs on this excellent album, it is appropriate to return to the creation of his record label, Acadian Embassy, and especially to the identity dilemma which underlies this entire artistic approach. It is a story of reconquest that is heartwarming to hear from a member of the Acadian community, “who has such a difficult relationship with his history.”
“My mother is French-speaking,” says Trevor. Mémère was even more French-speaking — a super-Acadian! However, between us, the friends of my community, we rarely spoke to each other in French. » Trevor did his schooling, primary and secondary, in a French-speaking school, somewhere in a village of Par-en-Bas, this region of southern Nova Scotia occupied by Acadians “since 1650”, underlines the historian budding.
During his university studies in Halifax, he played rock, with friends, in a host of projects that have since filled the Acadian Embassy catalog. And sang… in English. Because it was simpler. Also because he was embarrassed by the quality of his spoken French. “In the long run, you lose the ability — and the habit — of speaking French. However, we still felt Acadian, proud Acadians, even if we rarely spoke French. »
A small community of musicians, friends and roommates was built around him. “And when we moved into a new apartment or a rented house together, we gave him a nickname. There was the “Castle”. Other friends lived in the “Dirt Mansion”. “Where is the party, This evening ? At the Dirt Mansion!” We talked like that. »
The house he rented with his girlfriend and friend Josh Pothier was named the Acadian Embassy. What a good flash, which has become the identity of his record label!
This album sparked long discussions between us about our heritage, our “heritable”, and our difficult relationship with our history.
“This name served as a trigger for me to put my Acadian identity back into my musical creation. How can we approach our identity while having fun with it, while promoting an alternative music scene? » It was the end of the 2000s, and the Acadians would launch into rock, in English, anticipating the reaction of the community, in which the French language is as determining as it is asphyxiated. The record company threw a curve ball into the debate with the album The Great Upheaval, from the postrock group Kuato (with friend Josh Pothier on drums), “on which each movement evokes the story of the deportation… but without words, all instrumental! This album sparked long discussions between us about our heritage, our “heritage”, and our difficult relationship with our history.”
Convince the teenager in him
Which brings us to Archivistpop-skate-punk album sung in French by Par-en-Bas, except for the song American Lights, “reminder that our community is inseparable from the English speakers of New Brunswick”. Trevor approached the project imagining himself receiving such an album as a teenager: “What would be good for a 16-year-old guy who likes exciting music? What could have convinced me that music in French was cool ? I didn’t have such musical references when I was young, I only listened to English-speaking music. »
Another desire: to link this album project to the history of his region, his community, of Par-en-Bas. “I didn’t know much about the history of my community,” admits the musician. Invited to take a creative retreat at the Argyle Township Courthouse and Jail National Historic Site of Canada in Tusket, he immersed himself in the archives, discovering a multitude of writings , books published in small editions by “amateur historians of the period”. “And I feel a little like them today. »
He devoured the complete archives of the important weekly The Evangelinewitness to the evolution of Acadian society between 1887 and 1982, which inspired most of the stories ofArchivist — and most of the verses of the song The year of three eights (the year 1888), apparently calamitous for the people of Par-en-Bas. All this told between three glorious punk guitar chords, in the middle of which we find a fist-waving chorus inspired by the memory of the witch of Pointe-du-Sault, as well as the story of this Madeleine having escaped, twice rather than one, at the deportation of 1755 by hiding in the forest when the English passed. Epic, we tell you!
Archivist, it is, finally, a way of reappropriating one’s history and one’s identity by circumventing the clichés about the Acadians, affirms Trevor Murphy: “About the Acadians, we are always talking about Evangeline and Gabriel, and du flag, pis de la râpure”, this traditional dish of the Acadians of Nova Scotia made from grated potatoes, broth and chicken meat, which is cooked in the oven like a shepherd’s pie. “ Which we love it, no joke, but am I obliged to identify only with that? »