In January 2021, Sun ’96, the first album of Vanillahad not yet appeared that she was already revealing the rest to us: “I don’t know if I should talk about it right away, but I’ll go towards folk sixties “, confided to us then the musician. Promise kept: launched on Friday, The meadow reveals a singer-songwriter whose pen still evokes the beautiful years of Françoise Hardy, but this time dressed in acoustic guitars, flutes and harpsichord, justifying the label “baroque folk” that she claims even on the cover bearing the signature by the painter and illustrator Kaël Mercader.
“A lot of folk music from the late 1960s carries a certain baroque, even medieval inspiration, even in the imagery of the covers, explains Vanille. I also fell in love with these images and medieval painting, which even guided my way of writing: I imagined myself in a space and a time far from here and today. »
However, if Rachel Leblanc was also convinced of her next musical destination when she launched her first album of pop-rock songs sixtiesit’s a little thanks to a friend, and a lot because of the pandemic.
The friend in question made him discover the work of the unknown Duncan Browne, more particularly his first album, Give Me Take You (1968), which, says Rachel, greatly influenced her when it came to conceiving The meadow. Musically, “it may sound like Paul McCartney, but it’s more magnificent, in my opinion, more pastoral. Listening to the album took me somewhere else”. She had her collaborators listen to it before entering the studio: “The sound of the guitars, this type of orchestration, I told them: ‘I want it to sound the same!’ I have never heard anything like it. »
Directed by Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of the no less famous Rolling Stones, Give Me Take You was a commercial flop, pushing the British musician to reinvent himself as a synthpop musician ten years later. Over time, fortunately, this first album has been recognized at its true value as a jewel of this spellbinding era of British folk music of the late 1960s, which Rachel indulged in during the great pandemic darkness, in search of of warmth and escape. The musician also cites the influence ofAsk Me No Questions (1969) by Bridget St. John, friend of Kevin Ayers (Soft Machine), John Martyn and the famous record jockey and BBC host John Peel, who released his first three albums on his Dandelion label.
Out of the shadows
The meadow “is my pandemic album, written in 2021, while there was nothing else to do”, explains the musician. “That’s why it’s more intimate [que Soleil ’96]. We couldn’t give concerts then, nor rehearse in groups, so I wrote. In my room, with my acoustic guitar, for a change. Feeling the anguish of the moment like everyone stuck in town, I dreamed of somewhere else. I imagined a time outside the city, away from industrialization, even a world without humans: just the Earth and myself. It gave meaning to the album, which was more introspective, less juvenile than the first. I wanted to talk about my place in the world. »
From the recording booth, I could see the lake and the mountains. It was also at the time of the first snow; the transition from autumn to winter is also a bit like that, the album. I don’t know what happened to me at that time, but I sang differently.
The clarity of the melodies, the finesse of the orchestrations, contrasts with the impressionist pen of Rachel Leblanc, who speaks of her place in a few words to leave us the pleasure of imagining her world. The oppression of the city evoked in The Rose (“Never come back there again / The sky is now / My only lover”), the need to detach oneself from humans in my little way (“I must go where the earth takes me / Far from the hill of sorrow”). All interpreted with the delicacy of his clear voice floating on the guitar motifs and which, in all likelihood, also charmed France: after a first stage at the MaMA Music & Convention in Paris and at the Brussels FrancoFaune festival last October, a concert by launch of the album is planned for May, again in Paris.
back to earth
This introspection, this contact with nature, she found it at Studio Wild, camped in Saint-Zénon, in Lanaudière, where Rachel recorded the voice tracks. “From the recording booth, I could see the lake and the mountains. It was also at the time of the first snow; the transition from autumn to winter is also a bit like that, the album. I don’t know what happened to me at that time, but I sang differently. As if nature were whispering through me. Phew! it’s cliche, what I just said there! she says with a giggle.
The album finally took shape at the Pantoum, in Quebec. While the brilliant Emmanuel Éthier (Jimmy Hunt, Jonathan personne, Bon Enfant) directed Sun ’96, Rachel carried her new project on her shoulders, with the help of Alexandre Martel (alias Anatole), who is comfortable in the studio in the capital. “I liked the Lumière album produced by Martel. I had a feeling he would like my songs, so I sent him my demos. Head for the Pantoum to invent the precious orchestrations of this no less warm album.
“Furthermore, I wanted harpsichord on my record. Like on Duncan Browne’s! “The harpsichord is brutal, and what’s more, you have to tune it for each song, but it’s a legendary instrument that inspires respect and greatness. I wanted that for the album. But where to find that, a cursed harpsichord? Well, there’s one at the Pantoum. It is Alexandre Martel who plays it.
“It all started with the Pantoum harpsichord! says the musician, who only discovered once her cover was designed that it was the same Kaël Mercader who had painted the surface of the said legendary instrument. Everything is in everything, as Raôul said.