To create The night ends, Valencia took the time. The time of sleepless nights to compose without inhibition, of inspired mornings to refine without restriction, of long studio days to bring to life this album which recounts the intensity of a turbulent period.
After five months of composition and writing, a whole year of working on his first attempts, then around twenty days in the studio, Valence feels grateful to have had at his disposal the latitude not to rush things and to do them GOOD. He released his second album having given it all the attention it needed.
“I had a lot of time to create, to compose,” he explains, when we reach him by telephone, the week before the release. “It was a bubbling period of creation where I felt that I had reached the end of something. »
He allowed himself to make this record exactly as he envisioned it, but also to refine it down to the smallest detail, until the last moment. “Last week, I returned to the studio, just to re-record an instrumental part, to give another arrangement,” confides Vincent Dufour.
“Time is also a double-edged thing, because it leaves room for doubt,” he adds. But because I was with Alex [Martel, qui a réalisé l’album]I could express my doubts and I think he is the best person to decide between the doubt which was a real improvement and which was overthinking [dû au fait de trop réfléchir]. »
This disc is a transition towards a new way of exploring creation for Valencia. He got himself a new playground. And he played. “I wanted to make an album in the studio tradition,” he says.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Valence, of its vari name Vincent Dufour
I wanted to be less into sound design, less on my computer. I really spent time putting together the tunes in the “songwritting” way, whereas before, I started with a synthesizer line, for example.
Valence
“I had a greater letting go, in particular because I trusted that in the studio, the musicians were going to create life with what I had, that it was going to be their own thing that I couldn’t manipulate , he adds. There was this desire to feel that it was a band playing. »
When the night takes over
Time, therefore, was important for Valencia. At night too. The title of the album indicates this, but when listening to the 12 songs that make up the album, we understand that the theme permeates the majority of the work. And for good reason, it was born in the middle of the night.
“I started writing and the nocturnal theme came by itself,” says the singer-songwriter. The theme of the album is a bit like the process, actually. I was creating in the dead of night, I felt in a kind of conceptual bubble, even if the album is not a concept album. »
For Valencia, the night seems to be an outlet. “Is this where we admit the fatigue of having run the risk of a love against the light/Meet you at the turn of the night”, he sings for example on the very beautiful When nothing moves and lives.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Nighttime is a good time for Valencia.
The composition was very instinctive. When I started composing, it was always late, it became very sentimental very quickly. Nighttime is the time when you are closest to your emotions, everything is more raw.
Valence
Thus, in addition to being, as he says, the channeler of several emotions and the location of several episodes, the night was in his life the moment when inspiration took its most beautiful form. “Personally, at this period of my life, I was at a point where I was in an intense relationship and I had no perspective. The loss of inhibition that the night offered me helped me to write more from my subconscious, to be less in control, less trying to project something,” describes Valencia. When morning came, he could find his texts and rework them, without distorting them too much either.
In her words, we hear a poetry that takes on more than ever in the images it evokes. “In writing, I feel like I’m starting to find my way and my confidence, so I ask myself fewer unnecessary questions now. When the line is evocative for me, that’s enough, I no longer need to dig deeper, to try to create too much meaning. I know I can write more impressionistic texts. I used to tell myself I needed to clarify, but that’s no longer a concern. On the contrary, I find that it can be a hindrance to the imagination. »
For him, “telling stories is an art” and he says he is a great admirer of the texts of an author-composer like Michel Rivard, for example. “But I like to work from a vague point of view. »
Between the naive, the visceral and the elegance
In terms of sounds, Valence describes “two poles for this album”. First, film music. But not just any. “I came across the composer François de Roubaix and other composers who made New Wave music. And what charmed me each time, for De Roubaix specifically, is that it is very naive and good-natured music, but which is mixed with elegance. Georges Delerue, who did the music for Contempt, or Francis Lai, were all a starting point for me, inspiration-wise. »
The other pole, “a little opposite”: the album (What’s the story) Morning Glory?, from the English group Oasis. “I went for the fact of being able to have a black and white text and to shout it, to go there in a visceral and very teenage way,” describes Vincent. I wanted to touch this adolescent energy, this need not to look at yourself and to say things when you need to say them. »
To see and hear this album take shape on stage in Montreal and Quebec, you will have to wait a little. The launch shows of The night ends will only take place in the summer, a question of schedule and, also, will. “I wanted to give people time to make the album their own,” the artist explains. And it’s also far because launching it at the Francos, in an indoor show, is great. Something appeals to me about releasing the album in February, in the depths of winter, and doing the shows and gatherings at the start of summer. »
Song
The night ends
Valence
Chivi Chivi