Tag: Laurence-Anne

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Acclaimed Montréal-based artist Laurence-Anne has developed a reputation for being an architect of the intangible. Her work is a blend of elements of dream pop, coldwave and synth pop built around soundscapes featuring haunting melodies, lush synths, hazy textures and synthetic rhythms paired with a voice that’s capable of evoking and instilling both comfort and anxiety. Thematically and lyrically, her work is informed and inspired by her imagination and her experiences while being deeply infused with her unique perspective.

The Montréal-based artist made a big splash with her critically applauded full-length debut, 2019’s Première apparition, which landed on the Polaris Music Prize long list. 2021’s Accident EP saw the Canadian artist expanding upon the sound that won her critical acclaim. Her Félix Petit-co-produced sophomore album Musivision saw Laurence-Anne crystallizing her creative identity and sound.

Slated for a Friday release through Bonsound, Laurence-Anne’s François Zaïdan co-produced third album Oniromancie sees the acclaimed Canadian artist diving deep into the nocturnal world — with the material moving seamlessly between sweet dreams and paralyzing nightmares. Sonically, the album sees her continuing to blend elements of dream pop, coldwave and synth pop, in addition to elements of art pop and experimental pop, which gives the album’s material a denser and darker feel.

Drawing from its creator’s subconscious, the album’s material manages to be dreamlike, intimate and seemingly spellbound while inviting listeners to a universe that exists only to those who are willing to lend an ear. And with that ear, the acclaimed Canadian artists opens up more than ever, while still depending the mysterious aura that surrounds her.

Oniromancie‘s latest single, the breakneck “Vitesse” features a relentless rapid-fire staccato rhythm, which helps to evoke the woozy anxiety of a vivid and unshakeable nightmare fueled by the creeping dread of its creator’s deepest, darkest fears. Laurence-Anne’s urgent and plaintive vocal seems desperate to burst out of the confines of eerie synth arpeggios and song’s relentless, breakneck rhythm — but can’t. “Vitesse” is inspired by a particularly vivid bad dream and the 80s European coldwave scene, particularly seminal French outfit Martin Dupont. In the dream, the Montréal-based artist rushes full-speed through chaotic, Dali-esque landscapes in search of the source of unrelenting havoc.

Laurence-Anne will be playing a handful of dates across Fall 2023 and Winter 2024. She will be playing two album launch shows: September 28, 2023 at Montréal’s La Sala Rossa, one of my favorite rooms in town to see live music. September 30, 2023 at Québec City‘s Le Pantoum. All tour dates are below.

Tour dates
15/09/2023 – Pont-Rouge, QC – Moulin Marcoux •
16/09/2023 – Sherbrooke, QC – Théâtre Granada •
28/09/2023 – Montréal, QC – Sala Rossa (Oniromancie Launch – POP Montréal)
30/09/2023 – Québec, QC – Le Pantoum (Oniromancie Launch)
03/12/2023 – Gatineau, QC – Minotaure ◦
09/12/2023 – Mont-Tremblant, QC – L’Église du Village •
02/02/2024 – Terrebonne, QC – Le Moulinet •
03/02/2024 – Cowansville, QC – Espace Diffusion •
08/03/2024 – Lévis, QC – Vieux Bureau de Poste
15/03/2024 – St-Félicien, QC – Cégep St-Félicien – Salle Azimut
16/03/2024 – Alma, QC – Café du Clocher 

• Supporting Milk & Bone
◦ Double bill with Bibi Club

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: La Sécurité Shares Defiant Feminist Anthem “Hot Topic”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Sécurité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year, the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a Friday release through Mothland. 

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that are manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. 

In the lead-up to the rising Canadian outfit’s highly-anticipated fully-length debut, I’ve managed to write about two singles:

  • “Anyway,” a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal and super heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. 

  • “Serpent,” a track that sees the Montréal-based post punk outfit quickly locking into the sort of dance punk groove that brings Echoes-era The Rapture and early LCD Soundsystem to mind paired with insistent shaker-driven percussion, twinkling keys, the collective’s unerring knack for dance floor friendly hooks and choruses and lyrics — in French — describing friend group drama. The song is a cheeky and sarcastic ode to complicated friendships that despite the language is very familiar. As the band puts it, “The person it is directed towards loves dancing. It’s a pretty dancy song. We hope they dance to it.” 

Stay Safe‘s third and latest single “Hot Topic” is built around a lurching yet dance floor friendly, DEVO-like grove paired with slashing bursts of guitar, twinkling bursts of keys and off-kilter percussion paired with Viens-Synnott’s defiant yet wry, shouted vocals — presumably at a clueless cis-het dude, who can’t quite get the hint.

The song’s arrangement was initially written to score an extended avant-garde dance piece also titled “Hot Topic,” choreographed by the band’s Viens-Synnott and shot in a single, continuous take. “The concept was to choreograph a dance piece to be shot as a sequence to capture the ephemeral elements present in performing arts,” Viens-Synnott explains in press notes. “Drawing influences from the Riot Grrrl movement, I created a dance piece where five women take up all the space on a dancefloor, unapologetically. We can dress how we want, enjoy our night out however that looks for us and we don’t care what you think.”

After completing the piece, the band edited down the song into the version that ultimately appears on their soon-to-be released debut. And the accompanying video is also, an abridged version of the original dance piece. (For this post, the music video is above the main text of this post, the short film is below the main text. Both are a trippy experience.) The song, the short film and the video are a testament to the Montréal-based band’s unique nature as a collaborative, artistically open group with varied and differing creative ambitions and entanglements — and in a fashion seemingly similar to that of JOVM mainstays La Femme.
 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Montréal Art Punks La Securité Share Frenetic Ripper “Anyway”

Montréal-based art punk quintet La Securité features a collection of acclaimed local players, with the band featuring current and past members of Choses Sauvages, Laurence-Anne, Silver Dapple, DATES, Pressure Pin, and others. Since their formation last year. the Canadian quintet have quickly developed and cemented their sound and approach: Meandering around the fringes of punk, New Wave and krautrock, the quintet’s take on art punk pairs jumpy beats, off-kilter arrangements and minimalistic yet melodic hooks, run through an insomniac filter. And while their music is razor sharp and danceable, their lyrical content is rooted in the feminist community-centric ethos of the Riot Grrrl movement. “It’s not just fun and games… it also bites. It’s catchy earworms delivered with a punk attitude,” guitarist Melissa Di Menna says. 

In a relatively short period of time, La Securité has quickly made a name for themselves in both the national and international scene: They’ve been invited to play at SXSW, FME, Phoque Off, Taverne Tour and DISTORSION Psych Fest, and they’ve shared stages with Automatic, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, TVOD, Margaritas Podridas, CIVIC, and Duchess Says. Building upon a growing profile, the French Canadian quintet’s highly-anticipated Samuel Gemme-produced full-length debut, Stay Safe! is slated for a June 16, 2023 release through Mothland.

Recorded at Gamma Recording Studio, Stay Safe! reportedly features songs that manic yet surprisingly laid-back, empowering and urgent, reflective yet melancholy — all while mischievously flouting stylistic form every chance they can get. The album’s latest single “Anyway” is a scorcher built around buzzing and slashing power chords, a chugging motorik groove, bombastic hooks and choruses paired with a cooler-than-you swagger. But underneath the song’s frenetic energy is a song informed by a deeply personal yet universal, and very heavy subject: “This song was written in the early stages of dealing with grief related to miscarriage and pleads a sort of surrender to the strain it can put on a couple processing it,” La Securité’s vocalist Éliane Viens-Symott explains in press notes.

Directed by the members of the band, the accompanying video for “Anyway” was shot on VHS and follows the band in what has quickly become one of my favorite cities in the world. We see the band playing in joints around town, hanging out and goofing around. It’s exuberant, mischievous and stylish as hell. The video and album announcements come on the heels of the band’s SXSW appearance this year. So this year looks to be a big year for the Montréal-based outfit.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Hologramme · Préface (Printemps) – Hologramme

Clément Leduc is a Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, songwriter and electronic music artist, who initially made a name for himself by collaborating with fellow Canadian artists Geoffroy, La Bronze and Dead Obies.  Leduc stepped out from behind the dials and knobs and into the spotlight as a solo artist with his solo recording project Hologramme. Leduc’s self-produced, 2015 Hologramme debut was released to critical applause, eventually landing on ICI Musique‘s Best Albums list an being named GAMIQ’s Best Electronic Album of the Year.

Leduc spent  2018 in Berlin, where he soaked up new influences and new sounds that wound up deeply influencing his critically applauded,  sophomore album last year’s Felicity, an effort that saw him collaborating with Les praises’ and Hubert Lenoir‘s Felix Petit, Gustafson’s Adrien Bletton, Senegalese guitarist Assane Seck, and Laurence-Anne‘s Laurent Saint Pierre to create a dream-like and sensual soundscape that drew from the  music of South Africa and South America.

The Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and songwriter has had an enormous year so far: he released a five song remix EP Felicity tracks with remixes by Fakear, Robert Robert, Ouri and others, earlier this month — and he released his first bit of new material since the release of Felicity with “Alaska,” a slow-burning and atmospheric track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, bubbling electronics, shuffling and clattering beats and sultry vocal samples that’s both dance floor friendly and cinematic.

“Préface (Printemps),” the rising French Canadian producer’s second and latest single of 2020 continues a run of cinematic material with elements of deep house and techno  — but while being a less polished and urgent track centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, tweeter and woofer rocking beats, sultry vocal samples within an expansive song structure featuring atmospheric and dreamy sections. Much like its predecessor, the track will bring comparisons to Bonobo and Octo Octa — but while balancing earnestness with ambition.

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Clément Leduc is a Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer, songwriter and electronic music artist, who initially made a name for himself by collaborating with fellow Canadian artists Geoffroy, La Bronze and Dead Obies. Stepping out from behind the dials and into the spotlight as a solo artist, Leduc is also the creative mastermind behind the solo recording project Hologramme. In 2015, Leduc’s self-produced, Hologramme debut was released to critical applause, including landing on ICI Musique‘s Best Albums list that year and being named GAMIQ’s Best Electronic Album of the Year.

Leduc spent the bulk of 2018 living in Berlin, where he soaked up new influences and new sounds that wound up deeply influencing his sophomore album 2019’s Felicity, an effort that saw him collaborating with Les praises’ and Hubert Lenoir‘s Felix Petit, Gustafson’s Adrien Bletton, Senegalese guitarist Assane Seck, and Laurence-Anne‘s Laurent Saint Pierre to create a dream-like and sensual soundscape that draws from the  music of South Africa and South America — while continued an ongoing run of critically applauded releases.

Building upon a growing profile, the Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and songwriter has started off 2020 with a bang: he announced the release of a 5 song remix EP of Felicity tracks that will feature remixes by Fakear, Robert Robert, Ouri and others, which is slated for a June 5, 2020 release — and the first bit of new material since the release of Felicity, his latest single “Alaska.”

“Alaska” can trace its origins back some time ago — to sometime before the release of Felicity as a rough sketch of sorts. He took that track with him to Paris and Berlin, where he tried to finish it without much success. Forgotten for over a year, Leduc stumbled upon the then-unfinished track on an hard drive, seemingly asking to be completed. And with the assistance of Laurent Saint Pierre, he completed the song. The end result is a slow burning and atmospheric  track, centered around shimmering synth arpeggios, bubbling electronics, shuffling and clattering beats, and sultry vocal samples that reminds me quite a bit of Octo Octa‘s sensuous and dream-like Between Two Selves and Bonobo — but while possessing a cinematic quality.