My hand in the fire | The oath of Émile Proulx-Cloutier

Look at the world as it is, without falling into despair. Reach out to others with all the risks that come with it, accepting your own flaws. It is on this thin thread that Émile Proulx-Cloutier walks in My hand in the firea dense and rich work of engagement.

Nearly seven years have passed since his previous album, High tide. “It’s been a long time, so I wanted a generous offering,” says the man who has a parallel and successful career as an actor and director.

Since 2017, there has been, among other things, a global pandemic, the creation of the brilliant stage documentary Not lost with his partner Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, the detestable and delicate role of François in Before the crashand a solo tour which, says the 41-year-old artist, freed him a lot as a pianist and performer.

“I wanted this freedom to translate into the studio. » This is what led him to this album which lasts an hour and a half and has 22 pieces, including 5 instrumentals, and which is separated into three acts, each of which has a “dominant tone”.

And how is he? ” Not worse ! Listen to this, you’ll find out,” he tells us.

On My hand in the fire, we therefore have in our ears “the Émile of now, post-pandemic, with multiple demanding projects”. In the first part, we find that of the call to the collective. In the second, the one who is angry when looking at what is going wrong, but also funnier. And in the last, the one that returns to the intimate, more caressing and enveloping.

“It is a whole, a dialogue from one part to another: the Need arms from the beginning will end with Your skin at the end. But each part is a listening experience, so that people can choose their entry point according to their desire of the moment. »

Émile Proulx-Cloutier wanted an album with more tenderness and joy, which we hear in the brass, the choirs and the production full of nuances of Guido Del Fabbro. An album that also makes the tongue ring: the title also evokes for him the idea of ​​“twisting the metal of words”, which he bites into and which he pronounces perfectly.

“I write songs sometimes just for the combination of words. My first instrument is the drums, the percussive work of the syllables, it counts, even when it’s not a slam. »

Push on the wheel

It was as he wrote, seeing the image of the hand and the fire take shape several times, that the title appeared to him, with what power and fragility it implies. “There is this notion of risk, of going towards the other. » To get wet? “Yes, even if it means getting burned. There is also something of having a hand at work in this image, of putting one’s shoulder to the wheel. »

The expression “put your hand in the fire” also means to be convinced of something. He agrees: there is a form of “oath” here. “I will always be someone who doubts, but it’s more visceral, more camp. »

My hand in the fire is an unequivocal call for dialogue, nuance and listening, to name what is confronting while being capable of being fraternal. Let’s be clear: Émile Proulx-Cloutier feels and translates today’s world with rare acuity. “I am deeply delighted that you told me that. But it’s a bit part of our job, to be drummers. » This is the heart of his approach, which he wants to be honest and without complacency.

Talking about hope without being naive, in a way that has “both feet on the ground, aware of the pain that humans, and that our planet, are going through”. But with a pulse of life at the end, and a little flame burning to light the way.

Exchange

Émile Proulx-Cloutier launched his first album, Loving monstersin 2013. After High tide in 2017 he already knew there would be a third, because of what had started to open. Melodies, riffs, themes that had been brewing for a long time were able to blossom. But more and more, all his artistic “projects” respond to and feed each other.

His work on stage documentary Not lost, whose success cannot be denied and which delights him – it will be covered in June in Quebec, and in 2025 at Duceppe – has greatly influenced his way of writing songs, and vice versa. This is because from the “sound mass” of the hundred hours of interviews carried out by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, he designed a narrative framework which was to go beyond the anecdote. “That was the whole job: getting poetry out of people. »

He approached songwriting in the same way: less by telling stories, as before, than by “encapsulating reality” in four minutes. “So that it can exist between the lines, so that the person can make a little film in their head. »

Another example: it was thanks to the letting go that music brought him that he managed to delve within himself to play François d’Before the crash.

In return, it was partly the series’ point about performance at work that fueled the thinking behind the song Burnout.

Émile Proulx-Cloutier wants his album to do good to the people who dive into it. A tour will follow, in a more intimate version, but also in a symphonic version in Montreal and Quebec. He also dreams of playing outside, during festivals, and making people dance.

“The truth, in French, is that the songs live more on stage. » Several of those on the album even lived before being recorded, during his solo tour which lasted from 2021 to 2023. He says that for Strong opinionshe really felt that his remarks on the undermining of public speech had a direct resonance with people.

“I still believe in the power of poetry, music and living arts when we take care of them, when we shape the words, to make the state of the present vibrate. If someone gives the impression of talking about the torments of their time, and the inner abysses, it is a first step towards healing. »

Song

My hand in the fire, Acts I, II And III

Émile Proulx-Cloutier

The tribe