Abracadabra opens with an instrumental flight made of synths and delicate percussive incursions which sets the table for the rest of the album; follows Pythagorasits phenomenal melody, its ingenious text which says it all in its first two stanzas: “You have to get lost to better find yourself / So many proverbs so little truth”. Eleven years later Monster AlchemyKlô Pelgag discovered how to give the illusion of simplicity without compromising substance or form, especially without trying to make us believe that, as if by magic, the world is doing well today.
Right in the middle of the album, the musician refers to Rainer Maria Rilke with a song titled Letter to a young poetthis one being in fact his young daughter. “Did I lie? / I promised you / That everything would be fine / That I’m not afraid of anything”, she sings to him on a groove delicate, with exotic percussion and old-fashioned organ sounds.
“Yes, I am worried about my daughter,” says Klô Pelgag, a mother for a little over four years. “It’s a big responsibility, bringing someone into the world, and it’s something you realize repeatedly as time passes. But at the same time, when people ask me if I’m worried, I answer: “Yes, and not you?” » It seems natural to me to try to project ourselves into the future and hope that what awaits our children will be beautiful. That they don’t encounter too many pitfalls – well, a little anyway, it’s good that there are some. But not too much violence, in any case. »
“At the same time, this tune names my worry, an anguish, but it is also positive. I say I know she [sa fille] will figure out how to get out of it. And musically, it is light; this song is anything but dramatic,” says the musician.
Written, composed, orchestrated and produced by Klô Pelgag, Abracadabra represents a year of work, between spring 2023 and last April, and it just seems like a magic trick to us. Starting from scratch (“I don’t have that, a drawer in which I keep songs”), alone in her home studioand to produce such a gem of an album is phenomenal.
“My life is very segmented and I would like to change that,” breathes the artist. From my last show, I started working on this one. It’s always like this: make a record, do a tour. And after the last concert, compose for a year. I’ve always worked like that. And it’s as if the tour, which lasts two or three years, as if after this time, I need to evacuate what needs to come out. I open the channel and collect what comes out. »
She had some things that were in a hurry to come out, after the tour of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows (2020), the album which allowed her to win no less than six “artistic” prizes, including that of songwriter of the year, during the 43e ADISQ Gala. “I made this new album at a time when I was quite anxious,” she confides. Post-pandemic period. Violence. People’s distress. Inequities. Genocides. All of this bothers me, a lot. And in all of this, I’m here with my music, and it’s so important to me, making music is like a question of life and death. That’s it for me. »
Klô Pelgag pauses before resuming her train of thought: “And it’s just funny, when I think about it. Music, for me, is serious. I want to go there in my art where I haven’t been yet. I want to surpass myself. Meanwhile, the world is falling apart, but I’m here with my music! It’s just funny,” says the woman who says she fills her daily life these days with “repetitive, [de] lots of jazz in the morning.” She has spent the last three years with her ears glued to the superb Space 1.8 (2021) by Belgian-British ambient jazz saxophonist Nala Sinephro (her new album Endlessness was released last month).
In the service of music
It is somewhere in these contrasts, between the complexity of the harmonies and orchestrations and the simplicity with which we welcome these new songs, in the gravity of life of which music can only echo, that light emerges. , the smoke, the scarves and the rabbitAbracadabra. It opens, we say, with the instrumental The blood of red fruitswhich leads to the poignant Pythagorasa song that Björk would have happily added to her repertoire. These orchestrations of synths and strings! These choirs, without a real choir since it is only the voice of Klô Pelgag that we hear harmonizing with itself. This unforgettable melody!
“It’s funny,” she replies when we offer her our description of this future great song of hers. “When I wrote this tune, I played the model to my daughter. Two weeks later, we were in the car and I heard him singing the melody. She had only heard it once! It’s encouraging to see how his child’s brain is developing. »
She only needs two chords to captivate us with Guiltygives us flashes of his previous album with this Free boosted by ambitious keyboard orchestrations, brings tears to our eyes with the flowing The taste of mangoestakes on rock tone on Decemberrevisits American electro from the 1980s on Two days and two nights. We’ll let you discover the rest of this exceptional album.
“I evolved a lot through this album,” says Klô Pelgag. I feel that I have been more than ever at the service of music, in the sense that, seven years ago, I would never have had the confidence to track everything at home. I was encouraged to do it by Pierre Girard, with whom I worked and who mixed the album. I asked him: “Ah, do you think I should look for someone, a co-director?” He replied: “Well no, Klô, you already did everything yourself. What you are doing, you had already started with Our Lady of Seven Sorrowsit’s in continuity.” »
“The people I worked with really encouraged me to take the reins and trust myself. I’m happy to have them near me, they pushed me behind my back so that I would trust myself. It’s difficult, it’s a burden, a responsibility, all the same, to take charge of everything. But at the same time, it’s also a great freedom, to succeed in doing what you hear in your head. »