chic disco | Inside Lisa LeBlanc’s bubble

Lisa LeBlanc will launch next Friday chic disco, tonic album that should inject a good dose of pep into your spring. Inspired by her new songs, we chatted with the singer-songwriter of bubble pandemic, burnout, letting go and the importance of savory in Acadian cuisine. Among others.

Josee Lapointe
The Press

The return

Ten years after her first album, which was a resounding success, Lisa LeBlanc is back with an album in French. Between the two, there were two titles in English, long tours that followed one another, then a sabbatical, a pandemic, and her directorial debut – she is the one behind Edith Butler’s most recent album. . “Ten years, I can’t believe it, tells us the colorful singer, whom we met in an equally colorful café. I don’t understand what happened. Come on, it’s been 10 years? It feels over 25 years old, there is so much stuff! There’s a lot of cases that I don’t remember anymore, especially the first years, it’s like a big blur…” “Why do today what you could do tomorrow? “, she sings in the first song, a hymn to procrastination, but above all to letting go – like the whole album, by the way. These years off will have been beneficial, and she is now “in the perfect mindset” to return. “For that, I’m screechingly made to tomorrow. It’s time, and I can’t wait! It’s fine, semi-retirement, let’s go. »

the disco

Lisa LeBlanc decided to make a disco album thanks to her alter ego Belinda, the bingo-disco queen she played during the pandemic to amuse herself and her friends. “I had been trying to write for years and it didn’t work, I was stuck. Belinda reignited the “Oh my god, it’s fun to write”! So I decided to continue. It was liberating big time. “Most of the album was composed in a group, improvising “on the spot”, with his partner, co-director and lover Benoit Morier, and Léandre Bourgeois and Mico Roy of the Hôtesses d’Hilaire. A new method for her, but like Do you want to enter my bubble?, where the anxiety-inducing concept of a pandemic bubble was transformed into an invitation to have fun on an ultra funky rhythm, it was the lightness in the work that prevailed – laughing was her way of defending herself against the pandemic, she says . “I was scared to write about COVID, so this song became more of a party thing, which I’m still going to want to sing in five years. This album was made with pleasure: the composition, the studio, getting out of our slippers, it was fun. I have no trouble defending it because I just loved this experience. »

the patchwork

chic disco is a patchwork frenzied where an ironic breakup song rubs shoulders with a delicious funk and “foodie” piece in which she offers a typical Acadian menu. Let’s find out: savory is really the basic herb of the Acadians? ” Yes ! ” She laughs. “Our interview is very serious! There are also sumptuous string arrangements and a profusion of moving brass. “I buttered, I buttered well. But when you listen to big disco productions, it makes no sense, there are all the instruments in the world on a recording! It’s so produced. But I like that, the over romantico stuff that’s too dramatic! » Lisa LeBlanc swapped her banjo for a sax solo, in order not to become a caricature of herself – « You told me five years ago that I would have a sax solo in a song, I would have said are you sick, I hate that! – but she is basically still the same creator, who can be recognized in the way she writes and sings. “My banjo didn’t die, I just tightened it for this album, because I didn’t feel it,” says the singer, who likes artists who dare to go in new directions, whether it’s Beck or Daniel. Belanger. “If it’s sincere and authentic, I’m on board. And it’s the same path of authenticity that she took, “without bullshit”. ” Yes ! I love this style so much. It’s a surge of madness, a great freedom. »

The chiac

If the return to French was essential for this album, it is because Lisa LeBlanc did not see what she could add to disco by singing in English. “I thought it would be boring. On the other hand, if I arrive with chiac, it’s new! And it sounds super natural, with the accent and the groovy turns, it flows well. The words are easy to come out with the music, it works. Combining a language from a rural background with a “super glam” style also amused her a lot. “It’s not a mix that should be done! To sing gossip, with big chiac expressions on James Brown, I think it’s awesome. The “little girl from the woods” from Rogersville is never far away, and her Acadian roots remain fundamental – she had the opportunity to immerse herself in them a lot during the pandemic, which she spent mainly in New Brunswick. “Listening to my aunts, my mononcles, my grandmother talking, telling old stories or telling the gossip of the village, it’s my favorite thing in the world. It was super inspiring. »

Melancholy

Even if the album is driven by a taste for shared pleasure, there will always be a more melancholic side to Lisa LeBlanc. A sweet and serene love song (Seems easy to me), for example, or the very poignant Between you and me and the cord of wood, which describes well the drifting sensation of a burnout. “I wanted depth,” she explains. Writing is therapeutic. I always added humor, up-tempo, to send a darker message that I would have a hard time saying every day. It plays down the dark side, especially since I don’t want to look like a victim. This song, it tells about a difficult moment, a depression, and for me, it’s the best way to express it. »

The following

Lisa LeBlanc will be “in the juice” over the next few months, with a big tour starting at the end of March. “Oh shit, that’s it! I look at my diary, and my next two years are already basically decided… It’s kind of wild, but we measured. I write burnout tunes, so at some point, you learn. “In her case, it is even two burn-outs that she made, and she gave herself the means with her team not to fall back into the same uncontrollable whirlwind. She also notes that the industry is more aware of mental health issues, and that artists talk about them more. “We have to get out of the cycle of over-productivity, there is a big movement in this direction. Not for nothing the album is a call to slow down the tempo and to “enjoy” the simple pleasures of life. “But without sounding like a guru, I hate it. The shows, I can’t wait, especially at this time when everyone is divided, it’s so sad, it’s terrible. It’s a space where we’re all there for the same reason, music. You make me feel good, and hopefully I make you feel good, and that’s magical. » Will there be a giant disco ball? “No, but there will be outfits. [Rire] And a decor no worse. Worse capes. Anyway, I’m just saying that. »

Disco

chic disco

Lisa LeBlanc

Bonsound
On sale next Friday