In a first album entirely in French, the brilliant San James distills sensitive and deep alternative pop, shot through with resilience.
It’s a very beautiful first album that San James offers us here with Epilogue. After three EPs mainly in English, Marilyse Senécal made a successful leap into her mother tongue, with frankly well-made songs, written from the heart.
Funny choice of title for an artist at the start of her career, since the word epilogue evokes more the conclusion than the beginning of something. But perhaps the singer-songwriter wants to talk here about the end of an era – that of torment, of the fear of taking risks or revealing oneself, which she evokes in these 10 sensitive songs crossed by resilience.
“ I will cross the bridges/Between peace and me »: these are also the last words that the singer pronounces, in the song The bridge, as if the whole album heralded the liberation of a new beginning.
Multitalented, San James has dabbled in everything: piano, synths and guitar, but also co-production and sound recording with Simon Pedneault and Marius Larue, who also participated in the writing, just like Julyan. If we add to that drummer Simon Lachance, we can only see that she is really well surrounded.
It was also she who made the arrangements for the choirs provided by the wonderful Gabrielle Shonk – the world of San James actually resembles that of the singer from Quebec a little. Like the latter, she distills a slightly soulful alternative pop (Who knows), a little jazz (The fear of emptiness), all gently and subtly. And his voice, of great purity, can transport all the emotions of the world: in Portage, which tells the story of the change in roles between an aging mother and her daughter, is, for example, moving. Sometimes with a small break in a word or a roundness at the end of a sentence, his mastered interpretation demonstrates great depth.
San James also shows real talent as a melodist, especially in his more pop songs like Reminds you Or Flee. And if there is still something a little smooth that emerges from the whole, we do not doubt for a single moment that this Epilogue is in fact just a nice prologue for what comes next.
Extract of Flee
Alternative pop
Epilogue
San James
Rosemarie Records