Mea silva | Émilie Laforest’s little art object

A UFO: this is how Émilie Laforest describes her first solo album. “I couldn’t wait for it to come out, to see how the journalists would describe it! », laughs the singer-songwriter who doesn’t fit into any mold.

Mea silva – “my forest”, in Latin – is a record to tame, which wanders between new wave and contemporary music, baroque and old French song, viola da gamba, synthesizers and the piano of Alexandre Tharaud. We could perhaps summarize by using the term “experimental pop”, even if it is much, much more.

“It’s a mixture of several influences that I have,” explains the woman who has university training in classical singing.

Far from being a posture, it is rather obvious for Émilie Laforest, who explains that she has little affinity with popular culture. “Not out of denigration, but because I don’t know how to fit the codes. » Others do it much better, and with talent, she adds.

She was even prepared to live with an album that would be “difficult to access and a little opaque”, but she finds, now that it is released, that it is more accessible than she thought. There is indeed something captivating in this extraordinary record perhaps, but with pure melodic lines, and in which she transforms her soprano voice to create striking effects.

“I write my music on scores, the melodies before the chords. It is a writing that is closer to classical, with sentences that unfold over a long range. » Which is closer to old French song too, in the simplicity of melodies like Has a clear fountainor in river pieces à la Richard Desjardins – we can clearly hear his influence in the first song of the album, A very deep well.

Postage

It was because she understood that she had to create her own platform that Émilie Laforest decided to go solo. The multidisciplinary artist had done a lot of creation in contemporary music and theater before founding the duo Forêt in 2013, with his lover, the guitarist Joseph Marchand. Their album was an excellent success, but their musical association did not survive the couple’s separation.

“It was a huge loss because I wanted to go further with this project. » The mourning was long, a good five years, and during this time, she put her creativity and sensitivity to the benefit of other artists. She has multiplied the projects, directing shows – for Klô Pelgag and Karim Ouellet, among others – as well as artistic direction of large-scale variety productions as diverse as the national holiday in Laval and Belle and Bum on TV.

“Helping others to flourish may have contributed to my desire to give it a try. Especially since I felt that it wasn’t over, that I wasn’t ready to move on. » She had something to say, wanted to bring it on stage… and if she didn’t do anything, nothing would change.

In fact, at the time of Forêt, she did not want to write. Yet this time, it was through writing that the impetus came.

Reading poetry gave him ideas for lexical fields and sentences to develop. Besides the song Tundrawhich is dedicated to Joséphine Bacon, Mea silva is an inner journey that starts entirely from what she feels. “That’s precisely why the title is “my” forest. I needed to find out what I wanted to say about myself. »

And what exactly did she discover? She is hesitating. “That behind the pain, or the difficulty, or the sad things, there is beauty. I was surprised to discover this, while digging and digging. This is something I denied myself before. »

She is well aware that the result is intense and “not light”, but this beauty which is found at the turn of a sentence also illuminates it with a certain light. “We are not completely locked in the dark. It’s more chiaroscuro. »

Research

Émilie Laforêt is proud of this album that she co-produced with Mathieu Charbonneau of Avec pas d’casque. “My biggest challenge was pleasing myself. » On the other hand, she knows very well that she will not be able to tour throughout Quebec with such a work. Instead, she sees herself participating in a few festivals, creating derivatives like a show with new technologies.

“Event shows, unique, with a concept, I recognize myself in that. » What follows will therefore necessarily be out of the norm, and still in research.

“You know, you asked me at the beginning what it was like? I would say contemporary art in general. Visual arts, contemporary dance, creative theater. »

– A bit like an installation that you would go to see in a contemporary art museum?

” Yes that’s it. Like my record is coming out, it’s going to be there for four weeks at the Clark Gallery… Haha! It’s more akin to that than the music scene. It’s a little art object. »

Experimental pop

Mea silva

Émilie Laforest

Simone Records