We discover a new Trois Accords album with the same excitement as when, as a child, we dumped the contents of our plastic pumpkin on the kitchen table after spending Halloween, classifying our candies by preference. Have no fear, candy, there will be something for everyone on Presence of mindthe seventh of the group.
“We like to announce the tour for a new album later, it gives time to the fans learn the songs by heart,” says drummer Charles Dubreuil. “What we love is when people sing. It’s a big part of the fun to come see us, I think. Otherwise, you lose something by starting the tour too quickly, people are like learning – you feel them like deer” staring at headlights when they hear the recent songs.
The maneuver has another function: to give Les Trois Accords time to revise the list of songs to be played in front of an audience, which means having to leave a few darlings aside, difficult decisions to make, escapes Simon Proulx, singer and main composer: “ Without jokeit’s a mourning every time — whether the songs were singles or not. group activity [sur Beaucoup de plaisir, 2018], it’s one of our favorites, and yet one of the least known of the album. It’s hard to explain, but hey, we’ll have choices to make. »
Soon an anniversary tour?
Let us dare to make this suggestion: since 2023 will mark the 20e anniversary of the release of the first album of Les Trois Accords, Big Mammoth Album Turbo (with the founders Hawaiian, Far from here and Saskatchewan), why not a series of concerts consisting only of obscure songs? Around the table, the four musicians are startled: the anniversary tour, they hadn’t even thought of it.
Simon suddenly has a memory: “It’s true, it’s been twenty years since we played for the CISM radiothon! And since then, a phenomenal amount of success, making Les Trois Accords one of the most unifying, transgenerational and constant groups in Quebec, each song to be unpacked like finding a mini-Kit Kat among the little bags of chips nature and the pale lollipops distributed to us by commercial radio stations.
Even if, with this constancy, a kind of predictability sets in: “I admit that we never sit down before the production of a record to ask ourselves what musical direction we will take”, admits Simon, grateful in the same way breath that Les Trois Accords have not established their reputation with pronounced or unexpected stylistic changes. He himself does not really know how to describe the musical form of Presence of mind.
“We never had this kind of discussion, like: This will be our album…electro! The evolution is more natural, because we are interested in a lot of music, so it often changes the instrumentation in the arrangements. For example, there’s a lot of Moog on the album because we came across it and we thought it was the fun. Afterwards, we don’t think of a general style for the album: each song is approached individually. »
One song, one style
Let’s sort it out then! Pierre-Luc Boisvert, bassist: “Sometimes we have surprises. On joy of being gay [2015]there is the song dolphins and unicornsa tune weird, long, with a strange shape, not a song on which we would have bet to be one of the biggest of the concert. Charles: “We always have the same thoughts on each album, but on [Présence d’esprit]I think that’Internet will remain” in the hearts of the listeners. pop star also, who, as Internetpasses almost in its text for a social commentary (if not a criticism), which the group has always avoided in its career.
” Without jokewhen we make albums, you never know which one will touch people — that’s why there’s never fillers “, songs used to fill the album, underlines Simon Proulx. Alexandre Parr, guitarist, is of the opinion that Chinese dough“if I trust my mother and my friends, we will play it often, it should be a good success”.
Mom is probably right: this song is beautiful. Sober, an electric guitar motif, a few bass and drum notes, a beatlesque organ, the intimate, restrained tone of Simon Proulx. And his text, his images, the tenderness that emanates from them! What a good flash!
A Chinese dough served in the middle of the album, “like a bridge between the two sides”, imagines Charles Dubreuil. A song born in two stages, the assembly of two reflections, of two events that occurred in the entourage of Simon Proulx. “When I played it to the guys the first time, no one knew how to react, because we were all living our separate businesses. “What did we catch! interrupts Charles Dubreuil, who, at the time of this first audition, got up to give Simon Proulx a hug. “A case that we had never experienced in the band. »