Thierry Larose had to prove himself at the 2019 edition of the Francouvertes, launch an album — Cantalou, exactly two years ago — and go on tour to finally accept that he is also a singer. Before that, he admits, “I just didn’t like to sing. For me, it was utilitarian: I have a text, I have a melody, I have to do what it takes” to bring them into the world. “It was thanks to the music I listened to, and by dint of giving concerts, that I understood that the voice is the most expressive instrument there is. I wanted to put my new skills into practice”, which he does on Sprint!his second album, which will be released on March 10.
“Today, I take more pleasure in playing the role of interpreter. I feel more confident, too. But what I love above all is the work of composition,” says Thierry Larose, leaning on the table, orange juice in hand. Sprint! opens on Portrait of a Mariannewhich immediately takes us back to the album Longed for (1976), by Bob Dylan, which the musician placed prominently above the record player, on a wall in the dining room, next to a few others that also fed his inspiration: the Beatles white album (1968); an old Burt Bacharach; Intersections (1979), by Sylvain Lelièvre, “the album with The suburbsmy favorite from Lelièvre,” says the 25-year-old musician.
Longed for, this Dylan classic, is expansive. His texts, charged, abundant. Those of the immortal Hurricaneoccupying the first eight minutes of side A, and the eleven of Joey, at the start of the other. Larose also evokes Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlandswhose eleven minutes alone occupy the fourth face of Blonde on Blonde (1966). Portrait of a Marianne lasts seven; it is not necessarily representative of the rest (the next one, Lionheartis a small rock song fire of less than two minutes), if not in the refined subject.
We feel, listening to Sprint!, the need to get to the bottom of things. To relieve the songs of the superficial. The song which is self-sufficient, or almost, understood Thierry. You have to sing them for the audience to hear them. “I had this debate one day with Lou[-Adrianne Cassidy] : I had created from scratch a false dichotomy between the song and its interpretation – it is false, there is none”, he says, underlining the influence that his collaborators had on the sound , more sober and raw, Sprint!.
The incandescent Cassidy sings the backing vocals on the album, a gesture that we want to see as a generous comeback, Larose having spent the last year playing guitar in his famous orchestra. Her boyfriend, Alex Martel, was also part of the merry band: he co-directs Sprint!as he had done for Cantalou.
“A gang”
“It’s that I have a band, NOW ! Larose exclaims. Before, we understand, the songs were queens, and recording them and putting them on disc, gestures necessary for them to reach an audience. For CantalouMartel co-produced, Larose did a bit of everything else, including singing in a slightly timid voice, because I had to… “It’s something I wanted to do [sur Sprint !] : better put my voice forward, and therefore the text. I had less need to hide my voice than before, it seems. »
And to get there, having a good group is very practical. His own — Cassidy, Martel on guitars, Sam Beaulé on bass, Charles-Antoine Olivier on drums (and incidentally in making clips) — formed in Val-d’Or after the publication of Cantalou “a little by chance, my musicians were not available” for a concert at the FRIMAT festival. “I then called Alex, he was going there with Lou, who also offered to give me a hand. We jammed for the first time, and besides, I just wanted to sing new “tunes” — Sam had stuck Post-its on the back of his bass to remember the chord progressions of the songs! »
Cantalou shone with a thousand pop and rock shards, the orchestration like a box of surprises from which the title track and The lovers of Pompeiitwo compositions having obtained a real popular success, which is not nothing so early in a career. Sprint!one would say, exists in another dimension, with its aesthetic references to the indie rock of Malajube, to the guitars, acoustic and electric, of the song of the 1970s — on whale and meevocation of the disastrous journey of the humpback whale in Montreal waters in the summer of 2020, Thierry names Indian summer by Joe Dassin The madman of the island by Felix Leclerc, mile after mileby Gerry Joly and Okay okay of her friend Lou-Adrianne, “because it’s a great song and I really needed one that was contemporary”.
And yet, Thierry doesn’t give a damn about these musical references: “I never arrive in the studio saying to myself: OK, we’re rocking this one. [Coeur de lion] ! Or this one, we do it in bossa nova [Comme dans mes souvenirs]. I have no attachment to musical genres, from the beginning. The song, for me, it exists on paper; then I show it to the musicians, and it becomes what it becomes in the studio quite spontaneously. »
Soft and introspective
Sprint!, summarizes Larose, “speaks more about me, where I live. To be 25 years old, in Montreal. There are many stories, with a beginning, a middle and an end, which I did not write before. There are many portraits, of people I know or observe, that I describe”, like this young woman playing the main role of Perfectly intact.
His Marie-Hélène, he says, alluding to Lelièvre’s song. Or the character of She’s Leaving Homethe Beatles, on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). “Someone we all know, a composite of some girls I know. Lives that seemed interesting to me to tell in song: we guess her relatively young, living in town, not too lucky in love. Reserved, but also strong? I don’t know… I know people like that, I think it’s nice to see them go. They inspire me. »
“But the purpose of the record is simply to create new repertoire for the show, continues Larose. That’s why there are a lot of songs recorded in one take, without clicking [sans repère de tempo]recorded voices live Also. Apart from two or three songs found on the second half of the album (Perfectly intact, Knots in the fingerswe also add Full price) that could have appeared on Cantalou, the rest breathes another soft and introspective air. “It just happened that on those days, when we did them, we were all more relaxed. Either these songs did not require an explosive interpretation. Anyway, it’s unconscious: rock, it happens, sometimes. In show like in the studio. »