“I was never really a clubber », recognizes Peter Peter when he launches Ether, yet the most danceable of his five albums. He doesn’t frequent dance floors, “but I listen to a lot of club music, that’s what’s funny — it’s even what I’ve listened to the most in recent years. I have this curiosity, this fantasy, of wanting to make people dance, even if the dance floor does not occupy a place in my life. »
As if to get out of his own spleen, the singer-songwriter shines the strobes on this fifth album entitled Ether. Do you want to make us dance, Peter? “That’s a bit like it, yeah,” he admits, holding his breath like a diver does just before throwing himself headfirst off the 10-meter tower. “I wanted a certain radicality in my proposal, while moving towards something that has always been beneficial to me, that is to say by mixing my melancholy with something catchy. It’s the idea of music which, instead of being stifling, allows an outlet, which is what dance does. »
And that’s quite new in the musical universe of Peter Peter. For early fans, the rhythmic style ofEther will not be completely foreign. First, the musician has always embraced the timbres of synths in his work, as on the title song ofAn improved version of sadness (2012), this second album which opened the doors to France and the rest of French-speaking Europe. He even fumbled beat sustained, almost house, on Very realfor example, the song opening Black Eden (2017).
“I’ve been wanting to make this record for a long time, but it’s a lot of work to do on the computer, so I made a guitar album [Super comédie, 2020] because I wanted to play it without asking myself any questions. But this, Ether, this is the album that I wanted to see through to the end to better understand the electro-dance music language. »
Ether strikes at first listen with its house and techno references evoking the golden age of British electronic music of the 1990s. “It’s stupid, it took me years before coming back” to these electro influences only touched on on his previous albums. “I remember watching, when I was 14, Trainspotting », the film adaptation, signed Danny Boyle, of the novel by Irvine Welsh. A critical and popular success, it featured images of the rave era and the arrival of electronic music in the popular space.
Its soundtrack was just as memorable, bringing together the guitars of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed with the drum machines of New Order, Leftfield and, above all, Underworld with “ Born Slippy ! The song that aroused my curiosity for synths. The Holy Grail of techno songs, as spacey and atmospheric as they are aggressive, with a hyper punk voice,” adds Peter Peter, who says “he was raised with rock”, but today falls for the work of Daniel Avery , Kelly Lee Owens, Rival Consoles, Jamie XX and Caribou, “all based in the UK,” he notes.
Ether was composed and recorded between Paris and Montreal, at the end of the pandemic. After more than eight years living in France, Peter Peter returned to the West, stopping for a while in the metropolis before he and his girlfriend found a house in Quebec, where they have lived since last fall “with our dog ; we found the lifestyle we were looking for when we fantasized about leaving Paris. Something calmer.”
Found at the right time: the capital’s musical scene is experiencing a period of unprecedented excitement “which reassured me in my choice since it is still a little strange, as a musician, not to settle in The city “.
“But in all honesty, I never joined any musical scene anywhere, neither in Montreal nor in Paris,” Peter concedes. I’m such a homebody and a loner, I don’t gravitate much towards the industry, even other artists. » He prefers to work alone in his studio, but this time he is supported by keyboardist and director Guillaume Guilbault. “It’s a trait of my personality: I’m really in my bubble. I’m having a launch in Quebec, I’m going to try to personally invite people. »
Recognized in Europe since the critical success ofAn improved version of sadness, Peter is aware of having been “a little ghostly” in recent years in the Quebec musical imagination, “not only by career choice, but by life choice, too: I had this desire to experience something else , elsewhere, on another continent. Today, I still want to pursue my career here as a priority, while continuing to maintain a link there — I still have a tour manager in France,” where he plans to tour in the fall.
“For a guy from Chicoutimi, to have made it this far, that means something,” he said. When I return to France, it does me something to know that people are waiting for me. » He will therefore return with this more danceable show which we will of course see in Quebec. “I already have a new guitar-vocal album ready, but I had the feeling that this electronic album had potential. There, I feel like I’m on a roll: I’ve reconnected my studio, I bought new instruments, I want to continue on this path. I feel freer to do what I want, now that I know the method. »