It hadn’t been announced, but Galaxie is emerging from his hole today, and with this gray sky that has been bothering us for almost two months, he is unlikely to see his shadow. Today the surprise album is released See you tomorrow maybe, a sign that spring will arrive early for Quebec rock fans. Meeting with the leader Olivier Langevin, who receives us in his burrow, the Planet studio, in the La Petite-Patrie district, in Montreal.
Good ! Here’s Langevin doing the Beyoncé trick by launching a surprise album. “I was just going to say that it’s not at all to pull off a Beyoncé-style stunt! he said laughing. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn’t have said anything – I often announced in interviews that it was coming…”
The effect is the same. Owl ! Another burst of big dirty rock as we’ve loved it for… how long already? Twenty-two years since the release of the group’s first album, then named Galaxie 500, in homage to the model of car, as big as a yacht, manufactured by Ford in the 1960s and 1970s. Also unconsciously, perhaps, a tribute to the assembly-line production model invented by Henry Ford: fans were waiting for the new Galaxie as they do every time the Gros Mené group completes a creative cycle.
Langevin’s musical wheel always turns in the right direction: one year an album by friend Fred Fortin appears, the next, one from his rock group Gros Mené, then comes the turn of Galaxie. Almost the same musicians on stage, not always on the same instruments. “It’s Groundhog Day!” Olivier blurted. Plus, from one project to another, we always end up playing in the same places. But we’re not complaining! »
Langevin, Fred Fortin, Pierre Girard (the ace sound engineer and drummer in Galaxie) and their accomplices have thus perfected the art of earning a living by playing music that is ignored by commercial circuits, starting with the radio. “To put it in a flatly mercantile way, we create job, recognizes Langevin. We didn’t realize it at the beginning, but over time, we understood that touring the three projects – Fred solo, Gros Mené and Galaxie – kept us alive and allowed us to build a pool of fans, often the same ones who follow us from one project to another. »
“Well, we probably didn’t invent the concept, but today, I find it beautiful to see friends, gang young people — I speak as if I were old! -, there gang young people who all also play in each other’s projects. » The business model of the Lac-Saint-Jean musical tribe is today successfully imitated by the new generation. Let’s think of NOBRO and Les Shirley, of Choses Sauvages/La Sécurité/Totally Sublime, of the Quebec clan formed by Lou-Adriane Cassidy, Thierry Larose, Ariane Roy and Alex Martel. “There is also the gang by Good Child […] Alex Burger, who has his own project, Étienne [Côté], from Lumière, who plays drums, Mélissa Fortin, who has her solo project. It’s the fun : you’re going to see Bon Enfant in concert, it’s as if there were four bands on the scene ! »
Blues, not blues
Olivier Langevin, however, claims to have wondered if a new Galaxie album was necessary. “I was thinking; we’re still trying to find out if it’s relevant to record a new one, and what’s more, I was busy with other projects”, original music for the television series Good morning Chuck (or the art of harm reduction) (produced by Jean-François Rivard, first broadcast on Crave), and that of an instrumental jazz ensemble in the spirit of the Large Ensemble, put together by friend Dan Thouin. “When Peter [Girard] forced me back into the studio, just to trip to see what would come out of it, we had to fun “, even recording a first song from the album, the rubbery rock groove Dolbeau.
“Pierre told me: take out everything you put aside, because I’m a studio freak, I’m here all the time recording things. » A sorting was done, the big blues riffs, the grooves like Anomie in the opening, which sounds a bit like a very relaxed Jane’s Addiction, demos of songs played only on the piano, another more acoustic blues, “a bit like Dylan”. “Nothing that “fit” together. Listening again, I said to myself: this is nonsense. Well there you go, that will be the album! »
Well, we probably didn’t invent the concept, but today, I find it beautiful to see friends, the “gang” of young people — I speak as if I were old! —, the “gang” of young people who all also play in each other’s projects.
The most popular in Galaxie’s discography. A punk dump (Ramen soup), a big dirty electric blues (The spleen of Montreal), a danceable electro affair set with synths (Cucumber Moon). There is even a ballad, Moon, under “Beatlesque” influence! “Clearly in the style of Lennon,” confirms Langevin. Fred had heard it, passing through the studio. The song wasn’t there yet, with no words, just notes on the piano. I replied: “Ah! I think I’m Lennon and Patrick Watson in the morning!” » In the finale, a long guitar solo, in the style of George Harrison.
For the songs written, Olivier called friends into the studio, Fortin on bass, Frank Lafontaine (Karkwa) on keyboards, Pierre Fortin on drums, Karine Pion on backing vocals and percussion. ” We play. Even if it doesn’t seem to fit into the vibe, we do the song. Several were not selected for the album because they were too out. I don’t worry about cohesion, because when you put all the musicians together in the studio, they provide the glue, the coating. It is the energy of gang which makes Galaxy. Yes, it’s the most disparate album I’ve made, but the sauce ended up taking hold. »