Tag: Bonsound Records

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Jonathan Personne Shares Groovy New Single

Jonathan Robert is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, animator and visual artist, who is best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of the internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor.

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you may recall that Robert released his solo debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, an album that sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album focused on the potential end of the world. (With the album’s timing, it may have hit the nail on the head a bit too hard, eh?)

Robert’s Jonathan Personne sophomore album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While seeing him continuing upon the hook-driven yet intimate and sensitive songwriting that has won him acclaim,  Disparitions was largely inspired by a moment when music became a source of profound disgust for him. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes. 

Earlier this year, Robert signed with Montreal-based label Bonsound, who will be releasing his third Jonathan Personne album, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced Jonathan Personne on August 26, 2022. Written alone on an acoustic guitar in a cottage, the album took an unexpected turn, when the Montreal-based artist went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum with his friends and frequent collaborators Samuel Gougoux (drums), Julian Perreault (guitar), Mathieu Cloutier (bass) and the aforementioned Éthier (violin, synths, mellotron, vocals and production). Featuring arrangements centered around electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes, timpani, mellotron, synths, violin and even samples, the eight-song album continues Robert’s reputation for crafting material inspired by 60s pop and Spaghetti Westerns but with samples from obscure TV shows and movies, blistering rock grooves and extravagant guitar licks, the album features a more polished production than previous releases.

Featuring a Jonathan Robert illustration in which two children discover the remains of a dead body as its album cover art, the album thematically is rooted in duality: Continuing his reputation for breezy guitar pop, the album is also brutal, sinister yet candid. The end result is an album that evokes a mysterious world where ghosts, the supernatural, fate and broken characters with broken lives intertwine.

Last month, Bonsound and Robert released the album’s first single, “Un homme sans visage” a deceptively breezy song featuring an arrangement of gorgeous Mellotron-driven melody, jangling guitar, simple yet propulsive rhythms, bursts of lap steep, big hooky choruses and Robert’s plaintive falsetto. While continuing to be lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s, But the song is a bittersweet, sort of modern fable that tells a story about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire.

Jonathan Personne‘s second and latest single, “Rock & roll sur ton chemin,” is a deceptive straightforward rocker centered around a loose and breezy surf rock-like riff and a churning groove paired with dreamily delivered falsetto harmonies and Robert’s penchant for big, catchy hooks. Along with that, the song features subtle bit of bongo, Mellotron and whistles, which add to the song’s breezy vibes. But much like its predecessor, the song is actually bittersweet: The song is a tribute to dying art forms and those who still practice them. “Devoting oneself to a genre destined to failure, there’s something pathetic about it, but also something very beautiful,” Robert says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Jonathan Personne Shares Deceptively Breezy “Un homme sans visage”

Jonathan Robert is a Montreal-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who is best known for being a co-founder and co-lead vocalist of the internationally acclaimed JOVM mainstay act Corridor. Robert is also known for his work as an animator and visual artist.

Back in 2019 Robert released his solo-debut as Jonathan Personne, Histoire Naturelle, an album that sonically drew from desert dream pop, Western Spaghetti rock and jangle pop. Thematically, the album focused on the potential end of the world. (Hitting the nail on the head a bit too hard, perhaps?)

Robert’s Jonathan Personne sophomore album, 2020’s Guillaume Chiasson-product Disparitions was primarily written while the Montreal-based artist was touring with Corridor, and came about in a quick and fluid fashion. While seeing him continuing with his particular brand of intimate and sensitive songwriting, Disparitions was largely inspired by a moment when music became a source of profound disgust for him. “I spent a lot of time touring away from home. Towards the end I felt like I was reluctantly going to do something that I had longed wished for,” Robert explained in press notes.

When he was able to do, Robert went to Quebec City-based Le Pantoum, where he and producer Guillaume Chiasson used analog recording techniques to record the album’s arrangements of electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, Rhodes and timpani, as well as electronic samples, mellotron and synths.

Robert recently signed with Montreal-based label Bonsound, who will release his latest single, the Emmanuel Éthier-produced “Un homme sans visage.” “Un homme sans visage,” sees the Montreal-based artist eschewing the dense and complex arrangements on his previously released material, and going for a simpler, almost minimalist approach. Centered around a gorgeous Mellotron melody, jangling guitar, a simple yet propulsive rhythm, bursts of lap steel, Robert’s plaintive falsetto and big hooky choruses, the new single manages to be breezy yet deliberately crafted — while being lovingly inspired by the sounds of the late 60s. But under the breeziness is a song that’s actually a bittersweet sort of modern fable about a man, whose face is badly burned in a fire.

Directed by Robert, the accompanying video plays with shadows and light, amplifying contrasts and the image’s grain to create a dusty, old-timey aesthetic, while capturing the artist performing the song.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Rising Canadian Artist Magi Merlin Shares an Unapologetic Black Anthem

With the release of her first two EP’s 2019’s On My Way to the Listening Party and last year’s Drug Music EP and a handful of standalone singles, the fairly mysterious yet rising Canadian artist Magi Merlin (pronounced MADGE-eye) has exploded onto the national scene: She has received praise from CRACK Magazine. Along with that she has opened for Lido Pimienta and played at Osheaga Festival alongside ODIE, Jessie Reyez and others. 

Earlier this year, the rising Canadian artist released the Funkywhat-produced “Free Grillz,” a track that featured Merlin’s mix of fiery, self-assured bars and sultry crooned hook gliding over icy, trap hi-hats, skittering snares, glistening synth arpeggios and a tweeter and woofer rattling bass line. “Free Grillz” found the Canadian artist hoping to aspire to at least some of the tropes of hip-hop fame while reflecting on a series of bitterly harsh and inescapable, daily realities, like having oblivious people carelessly mispronounce your name, misogyny, kicking clingy and stupid men out of your life and so on with a mix of humor and world dominating swagger.

Merlin’s third EP Gone Girl is slated for a May 27, 2022 release through Bonsound/AWAL. The EP’s material may arguably be the Canadian artist’s most personal and audacious effort to date: Merlin grew up in Saint Lazare, a suburb of Montreal, created by Nixon types in 70s. A Place of white folks by white folks. Much like in the States, the suburbs are viewed as the epitome of all that’s good and “normal.” Unless of course, you’re Black and Queer — and that perceived normalcy is challenged.

The EP, which continues Merlin’s ongoing collaboration with Funkywhat draws from 90s house, drum ‘n’ bass, Motown and acid flecked hip-hop to create a sound that evokes smoky, after hours clubs — but with rumbling bass lines and thunderous 808s. Thematically, the EP sees the rising Canadian artist touching upon generational angst, fake friends, casual racism and more.

The rising Canadian artist’s latest single “Pissed Black Girl” is a sleek and hyper modern pop song that features Merlin’s assured vocal delivery gliding over icy synth arpeggios, skittering trap beats and a sinuous bass line. Interestingly, “Pissed Black Girl” is rooted in a familiar pent up frustration with fake white progressives and phony liberals but instead of the cliched trope of angry Black woman, it’s a dance floor friendly banger that tells those fakes to go fuck themselves and sit down, while the rest of us get down.

“I wrote this song summer 2020,” Merlin says. “I was made to really look at my identity as a Black woman and what that identity means to the people I surround myself with. I didn’t realize a lot of the people I had around me at the time that identified as progressive, leftist and ‘allies’ were not as supportive as they made themselves out to be. Talking with them just resulted in arguments instead of compassion and understanding. This made me very angry and the only thing I was able to do to vent my frustrations and arrive at some form of catharsis was by singing about it.

“The title of the track references a story an ex-friend recounted to me as well as what I and many other black women who speak their minds are reduced to: an ‘angry black woman.’ This ex-friend told me about a time they went to a predominantly white party in the suburbs and one of the party-goers, while staring out onto the front lawn of the house, said: “wow, there’s a N***er on the lawn” – one of many atrocious acts that go unchecked in white suburbia and various other white spaces. If there is anything I’ve learned from my experiences with ignorant and bigoted people, it is how unapologetic I need to be about my existence. I’m a girl; I am pissed and I’m Black. What about it?”

The accompanying video features the rising Canadian artist being unapologetically herself — but at one point dancing in a circle of flames that reads “Pissed Black Girl.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Follow Montreal’s Les Deuxluxes on a Campy “Star Trek” Inspired Romp Through the Galaxy

With the release of their critically applauded mini-album, 2014’s Traitement Deuxluxe, the Montreal-based psych rock duo Les Deuxluxes — vocalist and guitarist Anna Frances Meyer and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Etienne Barry — exploded across their native Quebec. Building upon a rapidly growing profile across the province, the duo released their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Springtime Devil.

After Springtime Devil, the Montreal-based duo released a batch of attention grabbing singles, including a French translation of album title track “Springtime Devil,” “Diable du pringtemps.” Adding to a rapidly growing profile, the band played sets at Montreal Jazz Fest, Festival d’ete de Quebec, POP Montreal and M for Montreal — and they’ve opened for the likes of Lisa LeBlanc, Marjo, and Jon Spencer. They ended 2016 with a mini-tour of South America that included stops in Santiago, Chile; Valdivia, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and São Paulo, Brazil.

The duo isolated themselves in a 19th century church in the remote Quebec countryside, where the duo wrote and recorded last year’s sophomore album Lighter Fluid to tape. Released through Bonsound Records, the album’s material is centered around old school, power chord riffage and classic psych rock vibes. Now, if you were frequenting this site throughout the course of last year, you may recall that I wrote about the swaggering AC/DC-like album title track and pure ripper, “Lighter Fluid.”

Interestingly, Lighter Fluid’s latest single “Vacances Everest” climbed to the top of Influence Franco’s charts as a result of airplay on SiriusXM — and the track eventually found its way into rotation on CBC Radio 3. The track’s success shouldn’t be surprising: it’s a no bullshit, no filler, boogie woogie 12 bar blues ripper, centered around some Chuck Berry meets AC/DC like riffs, a thumping backbeat and Anna Francis Meyer’s sultry and self-assured crooning. But underneath the song’s bluesy stomp, the song lyrically is about the perseverance to overcome life’s obstacles and the idea of giving it all, even when you feel low.

Directed by frequent visual collaborator Ariel Poupart with artistic direction from Matthieu Turcotte, the recently released video stars Les Deuxluxes as a pair of intrepid space travelers who go on a campily retro-futuristic romp through the galaxy. Spaceships hurtling through the cosmos? Check. Shimmery space jumpsuits? Check. Laser guns? Check. Otherworldly landscapes? Check. Fights with weird humanoid creatures, who probably didn’t want to be bothered by humans? Check.

Visually, the video lovingly pays tribute to old Star Trek episodes, Jane Fonda’s Barbarella and Zsa Zsa Gabor’s Queen of Outer Space among other things. “With Mathieu Turcotte, the video’s artistic director, we were inspired by iconic landscapes from Star Trek to come up with our own interpretation and blur the lines between the future and the past,” Les Deuxluxes say in press notes. “All the components in the video were created with recycled materials; from the scale model spacecraft to the 100% vintage outfits and the liquid light backdrops recreating the cosmos. Even in space, nothing is lost, everything is transformed!”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Sophia Bel Releases a Sultry, Genre-Defying Banger

Born to a Quebecois father and a Dutch-American mother, the rising Quebec City-born, Montreal-based pop artist Sophia Bel grew up fascinated by trip-hop and drum ‘n’ bass — during the era of The Spice Girls, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera. Bel’s work often finds her unafraid to cover vastly different sonic territory with the focus on capturing the right feeling in that particular moment. Interestingly, for her, pop is one of many aesthetics that she commonly pulls from and not a goal to achieve.

Along with pop, Bel plucks from underground electronic music, skater punk, guitar folk and even Quebecois hippie music to craft a rich, difficult to pigeonhole soundscape that has received praise from Wonderland, The Line of Best Fit, Complex and Clout among a growing list of others.

The rising Quebec City-born, Montreal-based artist has always been slightly out of step with her immediate surroundings. Her black fingernail polish made her the target of bullies at her suburban Quebec City school, earning her the nickname “Princess of the Dead.” Her recently released sophomore EP Princess of the Dead, Vol. II finds Bel reclaiming her identity, while marking her first release through Bonsound Records.

So far two singles have been released off the EP, “You’re Not Real You’re Just A Ghost” and “Voyage Astral.” The EP’s third and latest single “No More” is a slickly produced, breakneck,. meshing of alt pop, trap, house music and contemporary electro pop centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, explosive industrial clang and clatter, skittering beats and Bel’s plaintive and ethereal vocals. The song is written and produced to capture an intense and particular sensation: “I wanted to explore the dark emotions that come when learning to assert oneself, Bel explains. The anger, the bittersweet nostalgia of a lost fantasy. The mysterious tones of this song are paired with a drum ‘n’ bass inspired hook that creates an exhilarating rush of intensity.”

Directed by Jean-François Sauvé, the recently released video for “No More” places Bel into an empty and abandoned warehouse, where she’s imprisoned and watched over by an AI that attempts to capture every vacillating of its subject. The visuals manage to crackle, jolt and lurch with a seemingly brash,. supernatural energy while throwing the viewer into a dark and uncertain universe that kind of feels like our own.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montreal’s Les Deuxluxes Releases a Flamboyant and Psychedelic Visual for “Lighter Fluid”

With the release of their critically applauded mini-album, 2014’s Traitement Deuxluxe, the Montreal-based psych rock duo Les Deuxluxes, vocalist and guitarist Anna Frances Meyer and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Etienne Barry, quickly exploded across  Quebec’s music scene. Building upon a growing platform across the province, the Montreal-based duo released, their critically applauded full-length debut, 2016’s Springtime Devil. 

Since the release of Springtime Devil, the duo of Meyer and Barry have released a handful of attention grabbing singles, including the French translation of album title track “Springtime Devil,” “Diable du pringtemps.” Along with that, they’ve made appearances across the province’s major festival circuit, playing sets at Montreal Jazz Fest, Festival d’ete de Quebec, POP Montreal and M for Montreal — and they’ve opened for the likes of Lisa LeBlanc, Marjo, and Jon Spencer. They ended 2016 with a mini-tour of South America that included stops in Santiago, Chile; Valdivia, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Sao Paulo, Argentina. 

Written in the remote Quebec countryside, where the duo isolated themselves and recorded live to tape in a 19th century church, Meyer’s and Barry’s latest album, Lighter Fluid, the duo’s first album in over three years was released last Friday through Bonsound Records. Centered in old school rock ‘n’ roll riffage, the album’s 11 tracks draw from psych rock — while arguably be some of the most eccentric material they’ve written and released to date. Interestingly, the swaggering album title track “Lighter Fluid” is a perfect example of the album’s overall sound and aesthetic: power chord driven riffs, thunderous kick drum and enormous arena rock friendly hooks with boy-girl harmonizing paired with Meyer’s powerhouse vocals. The end result is a song that seems — to my ears, at least — indebted to classic AC/DC, JOVM mainstays White Mystery and The Black Angels. Simply put, this one fucking rips.

Directed by Ariel Poupart, the recently released video for “Lighter Fluid” is a mix of the fittingly flamboyant and psychedelic with the occult, as the band performs the song in front of a boiling cauldron and in front of some trippy and mind-bending backdrops.