If it had taken seven years after the album Love sickness to hear Jimmy Hunt perform solo again, the wait is much shorter this time. After The silence in 2020, the singer-songwriter this time offers a duo of albums.
As with the previous opus, no announcement beforehand, no extracts to give an overview of the project, no promotion apart from a few interviews. “I prefer it like this. By trying to endlessly hype the release, I find that it sometimes puts the focus in the wrong place,” Jimmy Hunt tells us.
In the end, these are albums that we will listen to and then decide whether we like or not. By receiving everything at once, I find that it allows me to get a clearer idea.
Jimmy Hunt
The public will thus have to get an idea of these two records with opposing approaches. Antitheses which, however, complement and respond to each other. Big beak is spontaneous, euphoric and imperfect, bathed in rock essence. In front of him, his alter ego, Kingdomdelicate and structured, on which the synth-pop lets moments of hovering calm resonate.
Very high, then very low
It all started with Big beak. Or rather with the meeting between Jimmy Hunt and the musician Pierre Guy Blanchard, who together gave life to this album. “Our mutual friends told us we needed to meet, to collaborate,” says Hunt.
The latter has been based in Maria, in Gaspésie, for several years now. Pierre Guy Blanchard lives in Charlo, New Brunswick, “on the other side of Chaleur Bay”. The two artists eventually reunited and soon began making music together. “More and more, we were talking about a project. He has a studio in Montreal and when I was in town, we spent evenings at [enregistrer]. »
By leaving room for the spontaneity of recordings livethey created blindfolded, eager to bring into the world an object that would not belong to a precise straitjacket.
But after a while, the management of the project ended up slipping from their hands, and Pierre Guy Blanchard found himself increasingly busy, while his partner was about to give birth. The “momentum” of this album in the making has faded.
Second breath
For Jimmy Hunt, however, that didn’t mean stopping working on new music. “I had another idea. I called [le musicien] Steeven Chouinard, with whom I had done The silence. We brought together musicians. It was really the opposite of what I was doing with Pierre Guy. There, it was hyper controlled and it felt good. »
While working on what would become the album Kingdom, the singer-songwriter didn’t feel the need to “do a lot of new compositions”. Rather, he deconstructed part of the material he had formed with Pierre Guy Blanchard.
Excerpt from the song The stars listen to meon Gros-Bec
“I made an album that was much more directive, much less maximalist than Big beak was at a certain stage. On Kingdom, there is no climax, there is never anything that gets carried away. »
Certain compositions are then found on both albums, in diametrically opposed forms. Because the recording sessions with Pierre Guy Blanchard were still there, “on a tablet”, and when Kingdom was finished, Jimmy Hunt re-released these songs. “I called Pierre Guy back, who then had time. We reopened the file and sorted it all out, which was still complicated! »
The release of Kingdom was approaching and Big beak absolutely had to see the light of day at the same time, one being intrinsically linked to the other.
Excerpt from the song The starson Kingdom
“It forced me to make a lot of decisions quickly and that’s a good thing because if I had had all the time I would still be thinking! The time constraint forced me to find an album in all this baggage of ideas, to trust my senses. »
Man of few words
As he often does, Hunt mostly keeps his lyrics succinct on these records. Some pieces of Big beak and of Kingdom are thus made up of only a few words. “Sometimes you wonder if the song is really finished,” he says. I tell myself it could be more. But ultimately, no, I love him the same! […] And it lets the music speak too, whereas it is sometimes neglected in certain works where there is a lot of text. »
In these lyrics, he addresses doubt, long-distance relationships or his own vulnerability. Sprinkled throughout his texts, nature inhabits the work, as it inhabits the artist’s life in his corner of Gaspésie.
Our environment passes through us. The relationship with mountains, birds, skies, trees affects mood and affects everyday life.
Jimmy Hunt
Big beak And Kingdom arrive ten years, almost to the day, after the publication of Love sickness. This grandiose album was a turning point for Jimmy Hunt. “It’s the album with which I understood what I can do with music and writing, by exploring music more and focusing the text towards an image. It’s also my first real experience in the studio, where I was able to spend time trying things out. [Cet album] is important in my life. »
With his years in the business, he says he is “less nervous” than he may have already been on the eve of the release of his two new albums.
“It’s like being on your deathbed, on the eve of knowing what’s going to happen [rires]. It’s particular. We have an idea, but in the end, it’s the world that will decide. »