The author, composer, flautist and singer Maïa Barouh already has a twenty-year career, but it is as if we are discovering her for the first time with her sixth album, Aidareleased in the fall of 2022. After getting noticed during showcases of the RIDEAU event at the beginning of the year with her song performed in French and Japanese tinged with jazz and electronic music, she will present herself, in all her musical and identity complexity, to the audience of the Festival d’été de Québec.
“Today, accepting to get lost is in some way a political and committed gesture,” believes Maïa Barouh, contacted in Paris the day after the European elections in June, which plunged France into a period of uncertainty, a chapter of which was turned last Sunday, after the second round of the French parliamentary vote.
“Because we don’t get lost anymore,” she says. “We always want to be reassured, we want to know exactly when we’ll arrive thanks to Google Maps, and it’s the same with shows and music: we want to know in advance exactly what we’re going to see, we listen first, we don’t take risks anymore. That’s what I want to inspire in people: the desire to get lost, to let ourselves be carried away. And when we let ourselves be carried away, sometimes we can discover ourselves and encounter surprises.”
Discovering oneself: this is how we could sum up the journey of Maïa, born to a Japanese mother and a French father who spent his life inviting music lovers to discover. Pierre Barouh was first known for the theme of the masterpiece A man and a woman by Claude Lelouch (1966), this “da ba da ba da” that he sang, to music by Francis Lai. Shortly after this success, he founded the legendary label Saravah, who notably gave us the first great albums of Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem — namely the grandiose Like on the radiorecorded with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and released in 1969, “such a modern album, even today,” comments Maïa, who will perform a song by Fontaine in Quebec.
This same musical curiosity, this openness to sound worlds which animated Dad transcends his daughter’s work. Aida “talks about my Franco-Japanese identity,” explains Maïa, who was born in Tokyo and spent her youth between Europe and Asia. “On this album, I explore in depth what it means to be ‘in-between’, and therefore the idea of being unclassifiable. I play with this notion, with what I consider to be a strength of being precisely on the borders” of identity.
This is the theme of the album, and more precisely of the song HafuMaia’s voice rapped more than sung, placed on a buzzing electronic bass line. The in-between, “I actually express it throughout the album, but from different angles and through this way of mixing the two languages [japonaise et française]. I invite people to get lost between the two worlds, as I get lost myself.
Maïa went to get lost in London for three years to think about this unclassifiable album. “I’ve always had this musical openness” which motivated Dad to take an interest in music from elsewhere, from Japan, but especially from Brazil. “I come from world music and jazz, my ear was educated through contact with these genres, says the musician. And so I have a musical curiosity, I’m interested in what’s happening today, including electronic music, which I find very interesting” and which links together the songs on her latest album.
“I like to compose from something organic, the flute and my voice, to then build the song with electronic elements. What I find interesting with electronics is that I find a kind of craftsmanship in it: with the computer, there are so many things that you can create at home, quite simply. It is thanks to software and music creation tools that I was able to develop my universe.”
Maïa Barouh will be in concert on July 11, 6 p.m., on the Hydro-Québec stage, at the Place de l’Assemblée-Nationale, during the Festival d’été de Québec.