Selective Listening | Ariane Roy, Boogát and Richard Hawley

Every week, our music journalists add songs to the playlist of The Press on Spotify. Here are three recent titles that are in our selection.

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Ariane Roy, If I crawl

A new song by Ariane Roy arriving, two years after the release of her excellent album medium pleasure, this is already a great announcement in itself. But the subject she addresses is also so new that we couldn’t ignore it anyway. With a kind of angriness that is reminiscent of a good PMS, the singer-songwriter talks about what afflicts half of humanity, but which is most often hidden: menstruation and their impact on the body and psyche of women. Rest assured, she approaches the subject in a poetic and metaphorical way, but we admit that we delight in this session of letting off steam which is playing on a loop in our ears. This young generation of artists continues to surprise us.

Josée Lapointe, The Press

Boogát, Semper Baila

Boogát is one of the most prolific standard-bearers of Latin music in Quebec. The artist of Mexican origin, who has produced a lot for others in recent times (Ramon Chicharron, Whaali), will be back at the end of April with an album of 17 pieces entitled Bel Horizon. This week he launched the song Semper Bailo, which he performs with the singer of Paraguayan origin Maï. On this dance piece which lives up to its name, we find Boogát’s mix of tropical rhythms and hip-hop, as well as his propensity to combine traditional and modern music. A nice heat stroke just before summer.

Josée Lapointe, The Press

Richard Hawley, Heavy Rain

Second Gulf War in 2003. Fall of the American real estate market in 2008. Election of Donald Trump in 2017. Pandemic in 2021. Upsetting moments and… inexhaustible sources of stories for many artists. It seems that Richard Hawley is among them, he who has been offering a post-event album for 20 years. The Englishman – and former member of the psychedelic rock group Pulp – will therefore release a new opus at the end of May, In This City They Call You Love. As a business card, he offers the piece Heavy Rain, a ballad that will not disorient those who follow the solo career of the man who flirts with Scott Walker and Roy Orbison. His melancholy baritone voice is nicely accompanied by a gentle guitar. That simple. All beautiful. Perfect while waiting for the next chaos.

Philippe Beauchemin, The Press