It has long been said of instrumental music that it was tapestry. All-purpose patterns on the back wall. As in: background sound, frame, decor. Well, the tapestry has changed places. We put it in front. In doing so, entire sections not yet unrolled were deployed. So that it covers a lot wider. On all sides, it extends. It opens, it arises. One could even say: it makes pop. And even: pop! Think about these books pop up which reveal three-dimensional paper constructions. Think about Popop, new label Quebec launched at the end of November 2021, dedicated to the dissemination of instrumental music of all genres (except strictly classical or purely jazz). “We want to be the standard-bearer of our instrumental music in the world,” says Éric Harvey, president of Popop.
From the tapestry to the flag: it can be seen from further away. Instrumental music, detached from the walls, out of the elevators for good, is in full expansion. It has its new stars, who share the place that André Gagnon occupied for so long, so to speak all alone, with Quebec and Japan. Song artists, Cœur de pirate last year, Ingrid St-Pierre now (see box), offer themselves a parenthesis of music without words. Guitarist Joss Tellier, keyboardist Vincent Réhel, recognized and gregarious musicians, elite accompanists from Charlebois, Dumas and other beautiful singing heads of our landscape, lead parallel instrumental music projects defying all description. Michel Rivard’s Flybin Band, namely Rick Haworth, Sylvain Clavette and Mario Légaré, reinvents itself as Magneto Trio. Among others equipped.
The right sound needed
Popop’s first album “popped” last week, acclaimed in these pages: the Sfumato by Martin Lizotte. On 33 rpm discs as well as on digital platforms, we can now see the beautiful, somewhat pop art logo of the new label, all in curves, black on yellow. Will follow an album by Ping Pong Go, a project of “cinematic and playful instrumental pop” by Vincent Gagnon and PE Beaudoin, a tandem of musicians “a little too motivated with excessive ambitions”, to quote the press release: we must admire, in the world without words of instrumental music, the art of eloquent metaphor and high-sounding epithet.
It is indeed a question of making a little good noise: it is the primary mission of Éric Harvey and his partners Fred Poulin and Jean-Cimon Tellier at Popop. Veterans, casually, who are already at Duprince, label of independent music, which combine promotion and management within Ambiances ambiguës and which marry good year, bad year with the “best festival of the world” in Saguenay, La Noce. Why Popop, moreover? “We said to ourselves that we cannot market and develop the career of an artist in instrumental music in the same way as we do for an artist who sings in French. »
Where is the difference? “It’s very much about online representation. How to make the music of a Martin Lizotte fall in the right ears? What are the best access routes? It’s not done by sticking up posters. Our music must be on the playlists of people who go jogging, the favorite music of people who study, those of people who telecommute, who want music to accompany them in the different activities of their lives. »
Instrumental music, a matter of image
It is very much a matter of image, we understand without saying it. ” When we have brainstormed the name of label, the first idea was that it should not be “pop”, in the sense of not too mainstream. We are on the sidelines by definition with Duprince. But we realized that the mixtures with pop music are part of this very wide margin. Instrumental music is worlds. »
There was a time—yes, the 1960s—when the albums of instrumental music by Roger Pilon, Serge Fontaine, Pierre Nolès and Gerry De Villiers were automatically found alongside James Last and Paul Mauriat on the shelves where never Kinks or Sultans fans. It was for adults. Nowadays, these albums are rediscovered by informed collectors: these musicians were much more adventurous than what the covers announced. Image business.
“We do a bit of the same job as newspaper critics,” Harvey says. Yes, the good old function of discernment. “In everything that is done, we need guides, places where we know we can find good things. Popop’s challenge is very much that: to create a zone of confidence in our judgement, in our curiosity. To be heard as to be read. What if criticism found its basic function here? “I think instrumental music needs effective word-of-mouth. A digital listening platform is sometimes dizzying. We need to direct searches, so that the algorithm is at our service, and not the other way around. This goes for any form of art, indeed for any source of information.
Popop’s man agrees: “It takes landmarks…” If only to better get lost, find yourself, get lost again. “That’s all the fun. »
Ingrid St-Pierre without saying a word