French icon of imaginative electro pop, Émilie Simon is visiting Montreal after a long absence. This Sunday she is offering a solo concert at the Gesù which makes the big difference between reinvented versions of songs from her first album and those from another to be released at the end of the month.
Those who have followed Émilie Simon for a long time know that she has a bionic arm, that is to say an electroacoustic instrument that she wears on her left arm which allows her to modify the sound of her voice live. This is apparently not the only superpower she has to control her environment, as we had proof when we met her at the end of the week in the lobby of Radio-Canada.
Just as we were talking about some of the recurring images in his new songs – a tiger and a star in particular – the giant screen nearby showed a tiger, then a starry sky… “I have a remote control”, joked the French artist, laughing at the coincidence.
Does Émilie Simon believe in synchronicity? We didn’t think to ask him. However, she readily admits the role that the unconscious plays in her creative process. Looking back over her two decades of career, she believes she has often made gestures that she describes as “premonitory”.
Sound mutations
His latest album of songs, Molting, dates from 2014. She felt that this record itself constituted the transformation evoked by the title. “No, actually,” she says today. It announced the moulting to come. » A multiple molt, we are tempted to specify. Over the last 10 years, the composer and singer has multiplied projects: a film soundtrack, a complete rereading of her first record, two maxis (EP) and a musical tale about a woman – Lily Mercier – who became vampire…
This same Lily is at the heart of an album to be released at the end of the month from which Émilie Simon will play extracts for the very first time on stage at the Gesù. Polaris tells the story of the struggle of a woman prey to her demons who ends up escaping the fortress she has built inside herself by flying away on the back of a winged tiger.
Extract of Tigerby Émilie Simon
“It’s a bit of a spiritual quest, that of finding oneself, of coming back to life, of going from shadow to light,” says the artist, who has never confined herself to realism. Her natural impulse takes her towards allegory and poetic images, even if the initial impulse always comes from a personal feeling.
I really go with messages from the unconscious. I’m telling a story, but I’m not particularly trying to justify everything.
Emilie Simon
What emerges imposes its own coherence, we understand. Lily could never have flown away on the back of a unicorn, for example. “She is going through something difficult,” argues the singer, “it takes the strength of a tiger to get her out of that. »
The ghost of Kate Bush
Polaris, a dark as well as luminous record, is of course shaped by a whole range of electronic violin making, the natural playground of this composer trained at the Institute for Acoustic/Music Research and Coordination (Ircam) founded by Pierre Boulez, a pioneer of electronic music . It is also sometimes more pop than many other Émilie Simon records.
The ghost of Kate Bush hovers over a few tracks here, notably on Secrecy And Crystal, two of the English-language songs on the album. The French artist readily recognizes the influence of the British icon on her practice. “I grew up listening to his albums,” she recalls. I also remember that, as a child, I saw on one of her CDs that she made her records herself. I internalized the idea at a very young age that it was not necessary to find a director and that I could do things myself. »
Extract of Desert (2023), by Émilie Simon
Her Sunday concert in Montreal will be a unique opportunity: the French musician will play pieces from her latest record in a solo format for the first… and last time. As soon as she returns to France next week, she will begin rehearsals for her next tour, which will be done as a trio.
“Performing solo requires surpassing oneself. It’s a challenge, but it also comes with autonomy and freedom,” she observes. She will miss the “irreplaceable” sharing that is communication with other musicians, but she will be able to count on her famous “bionic” arm. Since part of the concert will be devoted to the repertoire of her first disc, she will carry an updated version of the first model of this unusual instrument.
In concert at Gesù, Sunday, 8 p.m. His album Polaris will appear on March 29, at 8 p.m.
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