They did not consult. Nature is like this, the record industry too: each week brings its harvest of new releases. Ripe fruit, flowering trees, departures of migratory birds. When it’s time to release an album, it’s the moment we seize. Yet what is happening this week is absolutely astonishing, stunning, wondrous… and perfectly natural.
Duu, Étienne Dupré in civilian life, offers the universe his Arboretum, a book and record celebrating what the multi-instrumentalist describes in his introduction as his “love of plants, which manifests itself above all in what is around us without human action being concerned. He adds, to be clear: “In other words, what grows by itself. »
[Mon] love of plants is manifested above all in […] which grows on its own.
Mathieu David Gagnon, who is part of his project entitled Flore laurentienne to the point of overseeing it, offers the expected sequel, numbered in the manner of the classic works: Laurentian Flora II. ” It’s desired. The pieces that have numbers next to them are characteristic of works in progress. That’s how I operate. Each volume is the polaroid of the composition period, three months in 2019 for the first, about the same for volume two, in 2020. We are in the fall of 2022, I am already far from it, and the pieces have already evolved a lot. He doesn’t say that it grows on its own, but it’s like: “At each performance, the works live. Music is a language. The more you talk, the more new words you find. A three-minute piece can last twenty, depending on what feeds it. »
Music families
The two creators have known each other for a long time, have already worked together, are part of one of Quebec’s “music families”, in the same way that we group native species of flora in the region.
Both refer to the masterpiece of Brother Marie-Victorin, this Laurentian flora published in 1935, the great inventory of native species around the St. Lawrence. “The most precise work to date on the flora of Quebec”, specifies Étienne Dupré. “It’s more than a common inspiration, adds Mathieu David Gagnon, it’s our material. I think we each try in our own way to make Quebec nature speak through our musical language. »
And for each, although very differently, Duu starting from folk song, prog, avant-garde music, Flore laurentienne linking classical orchestrations to the sounds of the first mini-Moogs, the destination is somewhat the same: each seeks to merge electronic sounds and natural sounds into a single living being. Music as played by humans. Explanation by Mathieu David Gagnon: “With the first track on the album, SailsI think we have a good example of a happy marriage [rires]. It demonstrates, in the place granted to the sound space, the equality between the mini-Moog synthesizer, the strings and the clarinets. All are presented as “noble” instruments. I use the first mini-Moog because they are not perfect, because they are unstable: I have to adjust the sounds as I go. »
All species equal
Étienne Dupré, who plays with several formations, in addition to being the regular bassist of Klô Pelgag (on international tour as well as in the studio), has similarly managed a synthesis of all his collaborations as a Duu, in the service of pieces that are clean.
One could say: the substrate of its mixture of various plants. “How to get closer to me, that was the goal. I like all the projects in which I participate, but the risk of dispersing myself to the point of not knowing who I am is always there. The music of the songs ofArboretum vary a lot from one piece to another, but they all express what I experienced, the dark periods as much as the bright ones. It’s me talking about myself, but it’s enriched by everyone I’ve played and play with, and that includes input from everyone I meet. »
Music is a language. The more you talk, the more new words you find.
The two thus cultivate their garden, both a territory of their very personal expression and a symbol of a mission. Ecological and environmental concerns, gestures of affirmation of who is intrinsically Quebecois. Music of belonging and sharing.
“If my album can make people want to focus a little more on these subjects, as much the weed that grows on a median in Montreal as a mushroom in the heart of the boreal forest, I will really be delighted. In my opinion, Mathieu has this same connection with nature, where he lives, in Bas-du-Fleuve,” explains Duu.
The common mission
“I have known Étienne since Caltâr-Bateau, long before he became my sister’s bassist. “Is it necessary to say that Mathieu is the brother of Chloé Pelletier-Gagnon, Klô Pelgag for his thousands of close friends? “I think that the older we get, him as much as I in our respective adventures, the more we seek simplicity through our sometimes complex music, and this simplicity comes from greater self-knowledge. Our artistic choices have become clearer, we ask ourselves fewer questions. »
And clarity, we understand, is expressed more than ever in the relationship with nature, and in the increasingly organic process of their electroacoustic creations.
“I think with the pandemic, we all wondered what was important. Étienne as much as me. All the others too. And all of us now know where we stand, in which direction we are going. We all want it to grow in the right direction. »
Klô Pelgag on her brother Mathieu David Gagnon and Flore laurentienne
Klô Pelgag on her bassist Étienne Dupré and Duu