Across the RoomGabrielle Shonk’s second album, is the folk-pop album we were hoping for and which will undoubtedly appear in the best of 2023 charts. Interview with the one who tours in the first part of the Barr Brothers in some cities of Quebec.
It’s pure coincidence that Gabrielle Shonk’s stage attire resembles that of the members of the super trio boygenius on the magazine’s February front page. RollingStone. She had adopted the jacket and tie look long before Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus were asked to reproduce a famous photo of Nirvana in 1994.
It’s a coincidence, since these are three musicians that Gabrielle Shonk admires, but for the public, it’s almost logical since they are all singer-songwriters who have a strong voice, a vulnerability that feeds their music. “And a happy medium between a folk sound and a more produced sound”, would add Gabrielle Shonk.
It is because of “this happy medium” that the singer-songwriter born in the United States and who grew up in Quebec City feels so much at home within her new record label Arts & Crafts, cradle of Canadian indie-rock and albums by Broken Social Scene, Andy Shauf and early Feist.
It has already been more than five years since Gabrielle Shonk launched her first album with major Universal.
“It’s true that the industry has changed,” she opines when it is pointed out to her that music marketing has evolved a lot since then. In 2017, musicians didn’t have to think about TikTok, and all hoped for the success that Gabrielle Shonk achieved with her song Habit (listened to 6 million times on Spotify).
Habit was both a blessing and a burden for her singer-songwriter. “I was a bit in the shadow of myself… on my scale, we get along,” she says humbly.
It’s better than the other way around, but Gabrielle Shonk can quickly suffer from insecurities, especially if she’s not surrounded by musical friends as she likes to do in the studio.
If her first album was “a positive whirlwind” and “a good springboard for her career”, she also felt “overwhelmed by events”. She notably crossed Canada as the first part of Bobby Bazini and Dashboard Confessional, a group which also accompanied her, as a teenager, in the writing of her first songs. “It was full circle. »
When it came time to start creating the second album, Gabrielle Shonk was giddy. “I caught a little two minutes, she says. I succumbed to the pressure. There were expectations… Me too, I had some. I had too much judgment in my art, which didn’t leave room for a free creative flow. »
Gabrielle Shonk hasn’t experienced any latency periods. She has instead multiplied writing and composition sessions between Toronto and Montreal. “I was trying out a lot of styles and I got a bit scattered. »
What is my sound? What do I want to say with my second album? I was a bit lost.
Gabrielle Shonk
Then, overnight, in March 2020, we had to stay at home. “The pandemic has created a silence that I really needed. »
Gabrielle Shonk has returned to the simple pleasure of making music with her guitar, without expectation and with a certain naivety. “Without impact other than expressing myself. »
“I lost myself in order to find myself better. »
“The album of the two Jesses”
“Very humbly, I think that my strength is the melodies”, says Gabrielle Shonk when she is candidly confessed that the tunes of her album Across the Room have been with us since the first listen.
“That’s what comes most easily to me. My songs start from melodies and the emotions they evoke. »
An Adele could have sung the ballad Latelywhile Remember to Breathe has visceral R&B sounds that give way to a liberating chorus.
“It’s the album of the two Jesses,” says Gabrielle Shonk, referring to the fact that she worked with Jesse Caron of Men I Trust on co-writing and with Jesse Mac Cormack on co-production. Two guys capable of anything, let’s sum it up, or at least able to follow Shonk to dance under the influence (aftertaste), to sounds nineties (Remind Me of you), or towards jazz (5 AM) or a more timeless pop-rock sound (People Pleaser).
Gold, When calm returns was co-written with his friend Simon Lafrance in a residence in Petite-Vallée. He also launches his album on February 24!
“I really wanted a French song for the album. »
Written in the middle of a storm in front of the raging sea, the refined folk piece relates a feeling specific to the pandemic, but also to any great test: the hope of great appeasement after a wave.
New
Gabrielle Shonk began a tour with the Barr Brothers last Tuesday. It is in solo that she ensures the first parts (in Joliette Friday evening and in Sherbrooke the following day). Then, she will go to perform in the United States with Charlie Winston.
Another highlight of her life: Gabrielle Shonk has just moved to Montreal.
“New city, new album, new label, new management…”, she summarizes.
That’s exciting. But as she recalls on her song Remember to Breathe, sometimes you just have to remember to breathe when an overflow rises to your throat.
His origins
Gabrielle Shonk’s father, bluesman Peter Shonk, is from New Jersey and her mother from Limoilou. Their daughter was born in Providence, Rhode Island. It was after kindergarten that his family settled in a bungalow on Île d’Orléans. Gabrielle Shonk grew up primarily in an English-speaking musical culture. “My love for Quebec music came at 18 when I discovered Karkwa”, underlines the one who entrusted the cover ofAcross the Room to his graphic designer mother and who had all the texts proofread by his father.
folk pop
Across The Room
Gabrielle Shonk
Arts & Crafts