What have six years, several moves and above all a child done in the life of Philippe B? In the opinion of the singer-songwriter, who finally returns with something new, these tectonic movements have made his gaze pivot, but not his essence. This new disc, titled not without spirit New administration, reveals him as a father, but we recognize the chords, the style, the voice. As a creator and as a human, “we change, but in the end, we don’t change”.
The eponymous track on this sixth disc by the frail Abitibien draws this ambivalent portrait well. ” Revolution / In the waking city / Everything has changed, everything is the same / New world, new season / New administration » — a nod to all those businesses that claim to be reinventing themselves, in vain.
For four years now, Philippe B’s daily life has been tinged with the presence of Pauline, who celebrated her first birthday at the heart of a beautiful global pandemic. Enough to prolong the three-way bubble formed for several months already. This also complicates the task of the songwriter, because children have this bad habit of being noisy and sick, even both at the same time.
“It was really a case of ‘I have to find a way to do what I’ve always done in a new reality,’ says Philippe B, eyebrow raised. With a program that plays, then with the little girl who asks me for business every fifteen minutes, you don’t have that space to float, to be in the moon, then to have ideas, then to do some poetry ! »
What hadn’t changed, he quickly realized, was the music. Refuge value in the family tornado, the brain and the fingers have returned to where they belonged. “It sounded like things I had done before, in the kind of song, in the process,” he explains. I decided that was okay. Ultimately, it has become somewhat the theme of certain cases [comme la pièce-titre]. Then maybe I did it on purpose, in the sense that I didn’t try to react. »
From his masterpiece Phantom Variations, Philippe B always tries to land elsewhere, to thwart expectations. Not here. We recognize the riffs, we find the female songs echoing. It’s a bit of “Philippe B who makes Philippe B”, he says. “Same burns on the carpet, same view on the Hand “would sing Richard Desjardins.
The novelty in this new disc is elsewhere, and it is immense. She carries almost everything on her shoulders: the coming of her descendants and everything that happens before and that is likely to happen after. All told both in an anecdotal and universal way, with angles of attack that you can transpose to your life even if you are not registered in Place 0-5.
New administration begins with the majestic I am waiting for you, where Philippe B describes to his future daughter the world in which she will be born. On a guitar frame that makes you think of Island Tour by Félix Leclerc, Philippe B delicately lays down his strong images and does what he calls “an inventory” which is not meant to be moralistic. ” In the glass house / Where anger rises / Of a barely adult century / In sad comfort / Of the sleeping lark / And dreams of a country. »
Félix’s angry lark, “the same symbolic lark of the French Canadian, it is no longer shocked. She is more resigned, she is comfortable in a nice big house. Then everything is fine, ”says the musician. Never mind, the child will arrive. ” I don’t know yet / If you like the rain / Or what your name is / But I’m waiting for you here / In the upside-down room / A voice in the night / Montreal in winter. »
We don’t change, but we change a little all the same, so. And that’s what also made Philippe B, versed in autofiction, feel at peace with his music. “What was said in the songs took away my fear of doing the same thing. I knew that basically I wasn’t talking about the same case because I wasn’t going through the same case. When he sings “girls scare me”, we only see the sirens of the opposite sex, but also the mother and the child, for example. NOW, “ youit is not the same person as usual”, illustrates Philippe B.
The key is in the angle of attack, he says, giving the example of winner Mistral, by Renaud. ” [La paternité], it’s a relatively universal affair, but I found it difficult in song, unlike heartbreak, or living the life of rock, for example, which are affairs that can be told well. »
For his part, Philippe B turns, among other things, his anxious gaze on the future of his daughter in The thunderstorms there. On Pauline at the farmhe wonders about the impact of the places where we live on the blank page that are our children. Age of Aquarius depicts a father who would go so far as to believe in astrology to convince himself that everything will be fine.
There are quite a few off-concept titles on New administrationas Underground, an exercise in style based on the film of the same name, by director Sophie Dupuis. Or Last Call, which takes place in the vibrant night of Rouyn-Noranda. “It felt good to get out of that,” especially since these titles bring him back to his native region, to his home. One of his houses, to be more precise, because Philippe B now lives in the metropolis after having left it. He also points out that it is the stairs of one of his Montreal apartments that are represented on the cover. “And the balloons that are there are…yes, they are balloons that have been lying around the house for real for months. And that too is not about to change.