Discreet, wedged between two more ostentatious facades of Vieux-Longueuil, the bistro has everything of the corridor: you can’t see the back. This is where Maude Audet emerged, happy and proud as if she had crossed the Rubicon (reference to Caesar’s decisive crossing) between shadow and light (reference to the success of Marie Carmen).
Perhaps we exaggerate a bit, but not without reason: the flow of comparisons stems from the more than notable contrast between the container and the content of the new album, entitled We have to leave now. Front and back, photos: Maude Audet in black and white. White sheet, black clothes. On the back, Maude’s left hand hides her face. On the front, the shadow of his hand lets only one eye pass. Black. However, all you have to do is take the disc out of its slot, insert it into the player, and everything takes on color: from the first bars of Do you plan to stay again?, we are bathed in the most spring-like sensation imaginable. Impulsive arrangements, strings, harp, transverse flute, vibraphones and castanets. Sweet voice with short notes that border on nursery rhyme. The look of happiness.
“It’s a coincidence, at the start, these photos, says the author-composer-performer. They show me without showing me, that’s what I liked when choosing them. But there, I especially see that the sun is so strong that I hide my face. And we understand that the next moment is to take the light, to receive it. »The beneficent glare. The music unfolding. A kind of orchestral spring. Accept the darkness, find the light. That’s what she sings in The Strongest : “Advancing in the dark / And not making mistakes / The days that give us / Our most beautiful ideas / Tumbling again / Learning to get up / Being a volcano of joy / And the desire to dance. »
orchestral bliss
We think of Two by two togetherthis emblematic piano-voice song by Pierre Lapointe, whose arrangement twirls and twirls, as in the days of the From now on of Aznavour. A type of French orchestration from the 1960s. Richness and freshness, grandeur and lightness. Baroque pop song at its best. What so elegantly dressed the Françoise Hardy of Sothe Marie Laforêt of tomFrance Gall of We are not angels : the arrangements and orchestrations of Jean-Claude Vannier, Jacques Denjean, François de Roubaix, Alain Goraguer and others Paul Mauriat.
This is what, pell-mell in luggage, without looking like anyone while looking a little like everyone, provides the material and the colors of the confections of Maude Audet and her accomplice Mathieu Charbonneau throughout this new album. “It’s years of immersion, we never wondered what it looked like. It’s in us. “Acceptance case, again. “From album to album [c’est le cinquième depuis Nous sommes le feu, paru en 2015], it was more arranged, more orchestrated. Implicitly, one might say. “This time, we have reached the end of our desire for beauty. How to describe this desire? Let’s talk about good heat, the sweetness of life, music… spring. Something like that. Create spring: an album good to take in any season, good for all the springs to come.
From work to magic
How did they get there? Major challenge these days: there are no longer these orchestras and home arrangers. Sacred work before the recording sessions. “Mathieu is meticulous. Each addition of instrument was thought out, the timpani, the castanets, nothing was done without a good reason. We also had to think in terms of budget. It was very much placed before the studio. When we went to do the real basic tracks, Mathieu and I, with Marie-Pierre Arthur on bass, Charles Blondeau on drums, Simon Trottier on guitars, we were already very aware of the scores for the orchestra. It was very precise. It required concentration, and at the same time, it had to stay alive. I call it a well-prepared state of emergency. I had no time to be wrong. When it came time to record the orchestra, it was just magic. »
The fact is that the writing, the composition, everything is remarkably structured. In particular, the ways by which one goes to the refrains. By levels, by stairs, by modulations sometimes disconcerting one moment then perfectly adapted the next moment. “It’s my perception of what a song is: it has to be natural, but not banal. The pattern is simple, the paths not too marked, the landscapes neat. Everything happens at the right time: the impression of hearing the thunder rumble in the title song, the basseau peak which launches Always a sun in a fast waltz, the breath of wonder in the falsetto chorus of Labyrinththe strings of the Esca Quartet that follow and respond to the melody in The Strongestdrum rolls à la Procol Harum which give all the necessary majesty to I’m so afraidsung in canon with Mara Tremblay.
” I have so littler is the hardest song on the album. It’s about feminicide. Mara’s voice joins mine to form a benevolent choir. That is to say: come, we will take care of you. A song to get out of the dark. “On a park bench / Hoping for good weather. »