It’s a step aside, almost a rebirth, and certainly a rediscovered freedom. The musicians of the Quebec group Foreign Diplomats, who have had some success – even a certain success – with their first three indie-pop records in English, are turning their jackets around. Here they are again under another name, Frais Dispo, in French in the text and musically coated with new country touches.
Singer Élie Raymond has only good words for the work that led to the creation of these 40 minutes of music divided into ten pieces. The scrapbook, Tint, appears on the Audiogram label, but was created independently, with free rein. Finally ! he seems to say. Nobody was there to hound them, no accountant disguised as artistic director could ask them “more hits and do more hooks so that it goes on the radio”, says Raymond without resentment. But: “This one, we really did it for us. »
We are also the hard core of Foreign Diplomats — Élie Raymond, Antoine Lévesque-Roy, Thomas Bruneau Faubert and Charles Primeau — with the new complicity of Antoine Gallois, who first worked in the studio as a technician and who joined the group of musicians from the Laurentians.
One fine day, Élie Raymond arrived in the musicians’ rehearsal room and simply suggested: “And if we made a country record in French? “Self-sabotage? Cry of freedom? Want to explore? In any case, the singer and author of the texts felt a strong call to his mother tongue, in a mixture of fatigue in English and pride in French.
“It bothered me in the end to be another Quebec trying to sing in English, says Élie Raymond. And that’s basically okay, I did it for a long time, then maybe I’ll do it again too. Anyway, I found that today, there was a bit of a usefulness or a greater sense of singing in French. »
Consequence: the lyricist has a little abandoned the arm of distance that Dylan’s tongue allowed him to turn more towards him. Élie Raymond had made his mark with his solo project Totalement Sublime, but remained a harsh critic of his first drafts. He found favor in his own eyes by letting the dust settle a little on his work, instead of quickly crumpling the pages of his notebook. In addition, he opted for stories of everyday life, of his own daily life, weaving over the texts a certain concept around routine. The words of Frais Dispo make room for numbness, languor, repetition and the passage of time over the seasons. At times, a certain panic sets in, doubts, anxieties. It can also be all that, everyday life.
And country?
Frais Dispo ultimately didn’t result in a country record per se, but the band’s music evidently imbued its pop and rock tunes with reverb-filled acoustic guitar and slide guitar lines. Basically, the sound palette of the musicians has widened, been enriched, even more complex.
“We are still ForeignDiplomats basically, explains Élie Raymond. We have the style we had, with our little reflexes, which is correct. But there are moments in the studio where we listened to, for example, Neil Young and Blue Rodeo to identify what elements of their music we could put” in the compositions.
We hear here airs of With no helmet, of Bill Callahan. The singer assures that his main inspiration is the group Lambchop, formed in Nashville, but also explains that he has sometimes drawn on a Godspeed You approach! Black Emperor, Montreal darlings. “With Frais Dispo, we find both the sweetest and most nuanced moments that we have had during our career and also the most intense bits, it’s really two extremes. »
For the show on this disc, the benchmarks are also blurred. The rock reflexes will have to be reviewed, explains the singer, who is still looking for which foot to dance on. And ambitions? Elijah grins. “That’s the hardest question. The musicians have known the crazy tours, the hectic life, and know what it is no longer necessary to do to achieve their ends. “Look, we have a new name, a new band finally, so we don’t really know what will happen. For now, we just have to let things go, take it easy fun with that and then hope people get on board. » Are you available?