Two years ago, Marco Ema launched a well-made first album, but which lacked depth. With Anyway, Mommy Lovethe singer-songwriter who won My first Place des Arts in 2017 dove deep within himself and came back with a dozen sensitive and lucid songs, which can be listened to like watching a film.
Between the heartbreaks of the end of a relationship, the painful mourning of his father and the joyful hope of a new love, Marco Ema offers a touching and nuanced journey, filled with strong emotions that perfectly reflect those he has experienced. The beauty is that he managed to transcend them to make songs that are sometimes hard, sometimes luminous, but above all extremely fair, in the tradition, for example, of Gab Bouchard. Many draw tears because they are aiming for the bull’s eye of feelings – we challenge you to resist the double stirring Tonight doesn’t exist And Grande-Vallée, which closes the album.
With such a plot, it was impossible to cover each song in the same way. We go from pure indie pop to stripped-down folk, including string arrangements and touches of sax. The common denominator is a certain rock ardor, with incursions into prog and its breaks in tone that keep you on the alert. It also adds to this feeling that the path has been winding and sometimes confusing, as in the dark Blank, which happily evokes the best of Karkwa.
Marco Ema was particularly well supported by the multi-instrumentalist Simon Pednault on production, and musicians who work with the whole new generation of young artists, such as Pierre-Emmanuel Beaudoin on drums and Gabriel Desjardins on synths and piano. They give a cinematic atmosphere to the whole thing, you can feel it from the first song Karaokewhich could be placed on a film opening credits because it is so evocative.
The album thus unfolds from one scene to another, each having its own universe, resulting in a coherent whole. And we come away with the real impression that we have just witnessed the emergence of an artist who has found his place and his way by not being afraid to reveal his vulnerability. “I love you but the cinema is closing,” he said to his father in Grande-Vallée. It’s the last sentence of the album and we bet that from where he is, the dad must be quite proud of this beautiful, moving film written by his son.
Extract of Blank
Indie Rock
Anyway, Mommy Love
Marco Ema
Rosemary Records