Selective listening | La Presse

One hundred thousand tracks are uploaded to listening platforms every day. Our journalists draw your attention to the songs and albums that are exciting them.

Check out our playlist

This good old Manu Chao

Manu Chao’s touch is recognizable from the first bars of Vecinos In The Seawhich opens Long live you. We know this swaying acoustic guitar, these electronic tinkerings and these discreet borrowings from the West African groove. This feeling of déjà vu never leaves us throughout the first album in 17 years by the iconic singer of alter-globalization. And then? And then, we don’t care. We find him as we have always loved him: sensitive, committed and subscribed to melodies that charm the ear. The only thing that has changed here is that the tone generally remains soft. We let ourselves be lulled by these skillfully cobbled together songs, out of nostalgia, but also because no one takes such a tender, critical and open look at the world as good old Manu Chao.

Alexandre Vigneault, The Press

Long live you

Manu Chao

Because Music

The Return of Queen Clara

Clara Luciani’s second album, Heartreleased in 2021, was a disco gem that we listened to until we were sick of it. The return of the French singer-songwriter, with two songs released at the same time – Everything for me And Romance –is therefore the best news. Especially since it comes with the title of an album, My bloodand a release date of November 15. While Romance is a moving ballad about solitude, Everything for me is a joyful declaration of love to her baby born a year ago. Openly pop, catchy and danceable, it is an irresistible instant success that allows Clara Luciani to regain her throne as queen of French variety song. In fact, she had never really lost it.

Josée Lapointe, The Press

Everything for me

Clara Luciani

Romance Music

Dancing air

The room The secret announces the upcoming publication of the 15th^e album in Pierre Lapointe’s career, expected in the winter. While the 20th anniversary of the start of his career has just been celebrated, the singer-songwriter still has no shortage of things to sing, as demonstrated by The secretfor which he wrote the text and music, on which he describes the love that we live in silence. He addresses the heartbreak of a man who has not made his coming out and must love in secret. Lavish arrangements by director Philippe Brault give a danceable air, carried by strings, brass and winds, to this piece with heartbreaking lyrics.

Marissa Groguhé, The Press

The secret

Pierre Lapointe

Audiogram

Making Neil Young Proud

Since the release of Manning FireworksMJ Lenderman is being touted by the world’s music press as the next big thing. A prediction that one listen will have you coming around to. A logical continuation of the robust and disheveled Boat Songswhich sat atop my list of the best of 2022, this fourth album shows how much there is still to say with the help of an electric guitar, in a series of tragicomic portraits of male mediocrity, sculpted with a sense of incendiary riffage, which would make Neil Young proud. With a nonchalance that belongs as much to 1990s indie rock as to country, the 25-year-old is already cementing his place among the greats of American song.

Dominic Tardif, The Press

Indie rock

Manning Fireworks

MJ Lenderman

Anti

Muted harmony

If jazz is often associated with controlled chaos – or at least the search for it –, it is also conducive to the establishment of a hushed atmosphere. Here, Nala Sinephro signs a second album that calms the listener, who must dive into it without restraint to detect the variations that the Caribbean musician imposes (on herself) over the course of the 10 tracks bearing the prefix Continuum (1, 2, 3. etc.). The line is limpid, clear, courtesy of Sinephro’s fingering on the harp, the piano and especially the synthesizers – modular or not. A few tunes blown by a trumpet and a clarinet remind us that jazz and ambient make a happy mix when these two musicalities are harmonized in such a beautiful way.

Philippe Beauchemin, The Press

Endlessness

Nala Sinephro

Warp Records