All photos by Camille Gladu-Droui
In an era defined by 15-second hooks and the frantic churn of digital content, Catherine Leduc’s return is less a traditional “comeback” and more an intentional act of resistance. After an eight-year hiatus, the Trifluvian artist emerges not with ephemeral singles, but with ‘Les jours où il neige à tous les postes’ a complex, atmospheric statement that functions as a structural manifesto for the methodical creative process. See REVIEW elsewhere in these pages.
Departing from the leaner folk-pop textures of her previous work, Leduc has collaborated once again with partner Matthieu Beaumont (also formerly of Tricot Machine) to craft a subterranean landscape of sound. While she continues to compose on guitar, the instrument has been largely exorcised, replaced by a subframe of deep synthesizers and a driving, high-profile bass pulse. The result is a sophisticated brand of psych-pop where the fascination lies in the negative space. It is jewelry-making in a world of fast fashion; a record that demands a higher-volume immersion to fully appreciate its grain and friction. Leduc’s songwriting is a study in “punched-through” economy. Her lyrics possess the raw immediacy of automatic writing, yet they have been distilled until only a potent, poetic essence remains. Exploring themes of loss, grief, and self-recovery, she uses language as an anchor. Titles like “Quand la seule arme qu’il nous reste c’est de ne plus jamais mourir” function as poetic pillars, balancing guttural grit with ethereal suspension. In the seven-minute monolith “Les raisons embaument la défaite,” she explores the “embalming” of defeat—a word that suggests both the preservation of memory and a sweet fragrance filling the air while on tracks like “Tu meurs sans arrêt,” her translucent, layered vocals rub against the asperity of vintage synthesizers, creating a psalmic, addictive quality.
Composed of seven expansive tracks, many stretching beyond the five-minute mark, ‘Les jours où il neige à tous les postes’ captures the suspended animation of the Quebecois transition from winter to spring. It is the sound of thawing soil and an ever-present bite in the air. By rejecting the “studio-in-a-week” mentality, Leduc forces a decelerated cognitive pace, offering a sanctuary for the listener who craves integrity over accessibility. ‘Les jours où il neige à tous les postes’ is music that does not merely occupy time; it breathes within it. It is a generous, enchanting reclamation of artistic autonomy, proving that for an artist of Leduc’s depth, some things simply cannot be rushed.
Merci beaucoup to both Simon Delage and Catherine for the interview.
James Broscheid: How’s it going? Are you in Montreal?
Catherine Leduc: Good. Not right now. I’m in Shawinigan in a region called La Mauricie. It’s like two hours north of Montreal. We have an apartment in Montreal and this place. It’s my family’s cottage that we bought in 2010. It’s here that we do music most of the time. We have all our things in the basement.
JB: That’s nice!
CL: Well, thank you so much for having me because it’s my first time having an interview with someone outside of Canada!
JB: Wow! That’s what I thought because I was doing some research, and sorry, I’m a little late to your latest album …
CL: That’s normal (laughs)!
JB: I didn’t find anything in the U.S. or elsewhere on you, and I was surprised by that.
CL: Yeah, I think you are, if my memory is good, I think you are the first. And even in France, I don’t think I have spoken to anyone since my three albums came out. We had another project before, my boyfriend (Matthieu Beaumont), and I, when we were in our 20s. We went to the U.S a little bit, and we went to France, but after that, when I started my solo career, it became more niche and stayed in Quebec. There are not too many people here, so they’re quite small successes (both laugh).
JB: What was that first band?
CL: It was called Tricot Machine. If you read about my career, sometimes it comes out like knitting machine if you translate it. We started with that band almost 20 years ago now.
JB: How much output did that band have?
CL: We had three albums (S/T, 2007, Tricot Machine Chante Et Raconte 25 Décembre, 2008 and La Prochaine Étape, 2010 – all released through Grosse Boîte – JB).
JB: Is it very different from your solo stuff?
CL: Yeah, it’s quite different. I think it is quite different. Some people see similarities in it. I think it’s something else. The thing that’s funny is that my boyfriend and I, we still work together on my music now, so we’re still together. We’ve been together for 23 years. There was also a producer on those albums and my boyfriend’s brother (Daniel Beaumont), who was also writing with us, so it all tinted the project. To me it’s quite different from what I do now, and we were very young. It was our first experience, but it’s very naive and spontaneous. It’s different but there’s something pure about it. We were both studying at the time. Matthieu was studying biology, I was studying textiles. That’s why the name of the band! We were doing that after school when we were 25 or so.
JB: And you toured with that band down here in the states?
CL: Yeah, we toured a little bit in the states. There was a special tour for French groups in the New England states. So, we went there in 2009 for a series of 10 concerts maybe. A pretty small tour, but we had that chance.
JB: So, my daughter is 15, and she has been obsessed with Canada for probably two, three years now. We took her to Vancouver summer and whenever we’d go anywhere, she would apologize to every Canadian she ran into.
CL: (Laughing) I love that!
JB: I told her I would be interviewing another artist out of Montreal, and asked her if she wanted me to say anything and …
CL: She said, “Please apologize to her” (both laughing).
JB: Yup! She said, “I’m sorry!”
CL: We don’t think it’s your fault. Somehow it has echoed in our politics here, too, and it legitimates some things that were not so long ago, so we are afraid of that change. It’s insidious because we don’t really see it. Some things we thought were terrible a few months ago, some people are just saying, “Yeah, it’s possible. We can think like that. We can do that,” now.
JB: People get used to it and turn a blind eye. So, anyway, having recently been turned on to your work, when I first heard your voice, I was reminded of the French pop singers, the ye-ye girls of the 60s. I love that stuff. It is really nice hearing your vocals on your records. I still have one more to go that I haven’t listened to.
CL: Which one haven’t you listened to?
JB: I listened to ‘Rookie’ first, and then I listened to the new one, ‘Les jours où il neige à tous les postes’, and so that leaves the one in the middle, ‘Un bras de Distance Avec Le Soleil.’
CL: Oh, the one in the middle is the most special one to me. I don’t know. I think it’s one that inspired Jace (Lacek of The Besnard Lakes). I think it’s my favorite, I would say. It marks something, but they all have their identities.
JB: Yeah, when I asked Jace what he was into recently, he threw your name out first, and I said, “I have never heard of her.” He replied, “Oh my, God! Go check her out!” And here we are!
CL: Thanks to Jace! He reached out to me telling me that, and I think I knew it from some other musicians and it’s funny because in Quebec, the francophone music scene and English music scenes are … we know each other, but it’s very different. We’re not working in the same way just because of the fact that people are singing in French. Of course, we can have a career in France if we work on it very hard, otherwise, we’re limited to Quebec. Even Canada is hard. It’s a very small market. Canadian bands and Canadian bands from Montreal will tour some other places in the world and usually we don’t have access to that. It’s like we’re on parallel tracks, we know each other, but don’t collaborate. I knew that because I have a friend working at Breakglass Studios and he told my boyfriend that Jace liked my albums. He reached out to me earlier this year, to say that to me. I was very touched because it’s in French and that’s what keeps us from being able to share our music with more people because it stays in our frontier. Even on the streaming platforms, they separate it. It’s as if French was a genre and it’s only the language. We can do whatever kind of music. At the Junos (Awards, equivalent to the Grammys in the U.S.), there is a category for French music and all the other categories are like folk, rock, whatever with English people and English artists while the French category contains every style. I have always thought it was a little weird that French artists are grouped together like that, but I think it’s slowly changing. I think there’s an interest in people from other places in the world with other languages, we see that with Spanish pop, and so maybe we can change. I think my music is speaking not only the language, but it’s also the music. It’s not only the words that have an importance here. It is the whole thing.
JB: Do you think that the separation of English-speaking artists from French-speaking artists in Quebec is an institutional thing, even with the Junos? It makes no sense to me.
CL: Yeah, it is weird. I don’t know. Even us in Quebec, it’s not that we are ashamed of the way we were speaking because our accent is pretty different from the French accent. In the 60s, when people from Quebec were singing in French, they were singing with the French accent, and slowly it changed around the 70s. Some singers started to use their real accent, the accent they use when they’re speaking. It’s pretty new. There are still Quebec singers who take this accent from France because we were used to it. It’s like the way it is supposed to be, and we can imitate this accent pretty easily. I don’t know how, because it’s not working on the other side. (Both laugh) They can’t imitate us, so it’s weird. To export our music, sometimes it’s easier if we imitate their accent because it’s still exotic to their ears, the accent from Quebec. So, yeah, we’re marked with that provincially … our accent is quirky, a little bit. (Laughs) I think there’s a generation now that uses the Quebec accent, and is proud of it, but it’s pretty new to me.
JB: That’s kind of like the Cajun population here in the South. They have obvious influence from and ties to the French, but you can tell them by their accent. It is a very region-oriented and small population group, and so the music is very different and some of it is great!
CL: Yeah, but about the influences. I would say I surely have influences, but I try to avoid it. When I do music, if I think it resembles something I want to get away from it. If I can name it, I don’t like that. I try not to do that. Sometimes, I think people like to categorize and say, “Oh, she’s doing that it. It’s that kind of music. It’s that type. It’s that genre. It sounds like that other artist,” they like that to be able to put labels on in.
I try to avoid that. I don’t say that I succeed at doing that (both laugh), but when I create music, I try to do be aware.
JB: Yeah, people love to do that. If you cite influences then “Oh, that’s who they sound like!” Some make it easy for themselves, it’s easier to say what it sounds like rather than describe the music, if that makes sense.
CL: I like that better!
JB: I was born and raised in Cleveland, back then, I went to Montreal every summer. I always loved going to Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa … I spent a lot of time going to see bands in Canada if they didn’t come to Cleveland.
CL: Montreal is a really cool city. Living in this city is just perfect. You can do everything by walking. There are shows every night and great museums and theaters. It’s a city with a lot of culture. There are a lot of musicians and yeah, it’s big, but it’s small at the same time because we all know each other.
JB: I always enjoyed my time up there, and it has always had a good music scene. Everybody from the Nils to you now!
CL: Thank you!
JB: One thing that popped out when I was doing a little research on your work was that you mentioned it took eight years to write three sentences?
CL: (Laughs) Well, I had this song … I did the song and I wrote the lyrics, and while arranging it, we took off parts of the text and afterwards I realized that the song contained only three lines. (James laughs) Yeah, it’s a joke, but I was like, “Whoa, it took so many years, not to write only this song but to write this album and there were only three lines in that song! What did I do?” (Both laugh) But it’s not fair to say that the album took eight years to do, because that’s the time that separates it from the album before it. The two first two years, I had a tour, and well, I wasn’t into writing. And then came the pandemic and that had an impact on how fast this album came out because we needed to reach out for money and all that to do the album. It was a really tough period for everybody. For the whole music scene, there were no shows. I don’t know if it was like that in the U.S?
JB: It was, yeah.
CL: For almost two years, there were no shows, so everybody was trying to create music at that time. And yeah, there are a few grants that we can have here in Quebec, but everybody was wanting the same thing at the same time so, it was hard. Yeah, it took a while, but not eight years to do it, maybe four (both laugh).
JB: I don’t know if you’ve heard of a Montreal band called Mundy’s Bay? They were going to play a bunch of dates in the U.S and throughout Canada, and then everything shut down. They were literally just about to get into their van to go on tour but the pandemic stopped them.
CL: A lot of people had to find jobs. So, after that we lost a few bands, of course. This album took a long time for many reasons because Matthieu and I have always been living at the same rhythm for many years and during the pandemic he was offered a job as a biologist, and he took it. It’s a good thing. It changed our lives a lot and the time we had to arrange the songs because it’s the part that we do together. I write and compose the music and the text, but after that the production and the arrangements, we do that together. I have to say it’s very long because some people can go into a studio with a band and find arrangements by playing together, but it’s not the way we work. We take every track and do it with just the two of us. We put on and take off, trying different stuff to build something, and it takes a while because before we were like, “Oh, okay, I think that’s the song.” When we have all the songs together, then we go to the studio and because we play all the instruments, sometimes I think it sounds good, but Matthieu thinks it’s better if other musicians do some parts. (Both laugh) And before I hear it, I’m very attached to all the parts we have created, but sometimes it is not well taped. When it comes back with the real takes, it takes a little time for me to adapt. But after that, I’m happy that we did go to the studio and have a real drummer perform the drum tracks and not Matthieu (laughs). He’s not a drummer, he is many things, but not that (more laughter). That’s how we work, so it’s a long process. And after that, we have a period where we still play with everything and adjust, and then do the voices at home. We do a lot of stuff at home, all the keyboards, the voices, the pianos, my guitars, all that is done in our basement here. It is because we didn’t work on it full time this time. I think as I grow older, I like to take my time. We mixed it over a year, and that’s weird, but I liked it. I had the time to feel it. We would go to Sebastien (Blais-Montpetit), the mixer, once a month, maybe a little more, and we would mix something, listen to it at home and make adjustments then go back to the studio. I didn’t feel like there was pressure on it like I had to make decisions rapidly. I don’t like that. I’m not fast, I would say that (both laugh). I remember the album before; we mixed the whole thing in three weeks and after that I had anxiety. I was, like, “Oh, maybe this was not a good decision.” So, we came back to mix it and do more adjustments with this album, but I really felt good with the fact that it was over a longer term.
JB: You didn’t have any pressure.
CL: Yeah, I think I like that! I also like things to come out after a while and just exist in the real world. It’s not always easy to finish an album just to say, “Okay. It’s done.” We can accept that it’s not perfect. We accept that it will not be perfect, we accept that we like it this way and let it go in the world, but it’s not that easy.
JB: With you and Matthieu having most of the songs done at the house, you mentioned you would have to visit the studio too. Was that a matter of just mixing the tracks?
CL: It was a matter of having them sound a little better because of the bass and the drums. We needed to have them played by real players in the studio. But also, we compose every note of the bass lines. It’s not the bassist, it’s us, and then they must learn it. Maybe it’s boring because it’s not the most creative way, but of course, they can add their touch and add some things, we’re not rigid (laughs). We’re not crazy! (More laughter) For me, it’s a way to control those arrangements and go as far as we can playing with it at home. I think that’s because I don’t speak the language of music, I’m not the only one, but I don’t like going into the studio and having this impression that all the musicians have this access to that language while I don’t.
I feel like I have limits, and I feel like I don’t take part in the conversation. With Matthieu it’s different because we have known each other for such a long time. I can mime, I can play every instrument, even though I don’t play it perfectly. I’m not ashamed of doing anything, so having that safe space is super important in our way of working because it gives me that space to express myself and go further. When I’m with other musicians and we’re all together, some people impress me, but I’m more shy to say, “Oh, no that won’t work” if I don’t like something. I don’t want them to not be happy because I don’t like what they propose. So, yeah, I tend to do a lot of work before going to the studio, and then I feel like it’s not somebody else that did my music. I feel it’s my music.
JB: That makes sense. Do you and Matthieu have players in mind when you know you need them?
CL: Yeah, we have musicians that have been playing with us before. Well, for the first album, it was a little bit different, but Simon Trottier played on this album. Simon was playing with Timber Timbre (folk project from Brooklin, Ontario), at the time. He is a pretty great guitarist. All the musicians that we used on the second album are on the this album. We sort of found the band there, it’s still the same band playing on tour and playing in studio. When they hear a song the first time, it’s all arranged. It’s not just a voice and guitar.
JB: This latest album is not on a record label?
CL: Nope (laughs).
JB: Did your move to total independence change the way you and Matthieu approached the sound design and production of this album?
CL: No, because even when we were with a label, it was there to carry our records Grosse Boîte (“Big Box”), the same thing, it was a license, so we produced it, and then they took it, like the way it was, they never said, “Oh, you should change this or that,” so it was pretty much the same thing. It’s more about the fact that I don’t have to split everything in half because it’s harder than yet than ever to be a musician and earn a living. At first, there was something that happened with our label during the pandemic, and it was during the #MeToo movement that there were (sexual assault – JB) allegations.
Then the label just fell apart. So, it was pretty dramatic because we were with them from the beginning, and it’s a label we helped build because we were one of the first artists there. So, when it fell apart, someone bought it and the artistic direction changed a little. I didn’t go with them and was then looking for another label, but rapidly I thought that it was taking too long because it had been two years. Then I thought, “Well, maybe I can do it myself.” I was introduced to Simon (Delage, manager), and he helped me put it all together and just gave me homework (laughs), “You have to do this. You have to do that by this date. The first single comes out on this date. We have to have all this done.” I liked that, to participate in that really made me proud.
I think it also taught me that it was not that hard to put out music on my own. Now, with all these platforms, we have less material and yes, I worked, but when I think about giving half of the money I made to a label before … now I have that money! It wasn’t that much more work. I encourage people to do that move. Of course, when you’re starting out, maybe a label is something that can be helpful. I still like record labels and I’m not against them at all, but I think wanting to be independent is something to consider. For me, I think it was a good move.
JB: There was a similar situation with a label out of California. As you mentioned, the #MeToo movement was gathering momentum and this label was putting out all this great underground music and then were wrapped up in sexual assault allegations against the owners and some of their artists. So that label disintegrated. It was and still is shocking to me because one of the things that drew me to independent and underground music scenes was that they are full of good people.
CL: I know what you’re talking about. I always think that I’m very lucky that this is my industry and I’m working with like-minded people because I like everybody. I think we were so lucky that the people that surround us every day in the music industry, well, musicians and not necessarily everybody, are all good, intelligent and fun people and people that choose to live life another way. I think it’s inspiring.
JB: And most have great taste (Catherine laughs). I know I could go to people and ask them what they have been listening to lately, and they’ll recommend something that will blow my mind. You don’t get that everywhere.
CL: No, you don’t!
JB: When you surround yourself with good people, you hopefully become one yourself. Trying new things and thinking about issues you may not have thought about before or looking at something differently, there are a lot of positives. You mentioned earlier your previous band, and I read that you were kind of burned out by the caricature of that band in correlation to this album. Does this record feel like an act of reclaiming your identity? Or is it a final peace offering to that version of yourself?
CL: Well, my whole solo career felt like I needed to reappropriate something and as I said earlier, the other project was like a project of many people. We were four people mainly, really working at it. For this one, I really wanted to be the one that writes the lyrics and composes the music. That was very important to me to feel accomplished, and I could do whatever I want to do, I’m not stuck somewhere. With a band, it was very characterized, in that people sometimes compared it to kids’ music.
We have this TV program here that was playing when I was young, and it’s called Passe-Partout (Skeleton Key). You might see it if you read about my band (laughs). Passe-Partout really marked a whole generation. It was incredible. It was very good kids stuff. It was genius, and the music was genius. The music from Passe-Partout with all those synths from the 70s was very psychedelic and cool. I think I was the first one comparing my music to Passe-Partout, (laughter) but some people took that and transformed it a little bit. My voice was more high-pitched at the time, but I was playing with it, I liked it and I assumed that people were intelligent enough to understand that we were talking about deep subjects, and sometimes the music was a little childish and all this was naive, but it was controlled. We knew we were doing that, but I thought it was cool, and some people just didn’t understand (laughs).
I think that’s something that’s still not totally repaired with me. I don’t understand how people cannot get things, it’s not complicated. You just have to open your heart and open your mind to thinking that, “Yeah, it’s not kids music, it’s music that takes elements from it, and that can be cool. I was a little disappointed by people I think (laughs). I say that, but it’s because Tricot Machine was a huge success we had sold a lot of albums, we went to France, we toured. We toured so much I was really, really tired after that last tour, but what happens is that when you have that kind of success, you have haters.
Also, it was the beginning of Facebook, and people were not so good at using it. It’s not that they’re better now, but it was different, because journalists were more aggressive then. Now, it’s more inclusive. It’s different. We learned some concepts that were not actuality, they were just intimidation. We didn’t speak about that, so it was okay to hate a band because they were not as cool as another one. The indie music scene in Montreal had a lot to do with that, “Are you cool, or are you not cool? Is it cool? Was it cool before, and not cool now?” It’s a period that’s really special. It gave us a lot, but it took a little bit from us also.
JB: Yeah, I was raised in that type of environment where you are worried about, “Is it cool, or is it not cool?” and “Can I be a part the cool club?” That mentality seemed to be steeped in that whole Midwest mullet classic rock stuff.
CL: And it’s a way to be part of a group and to exclude hate. It makes you part of something and so it’s complicated, and it can be a little childish (laughs). There was a band at the time and they’re friends of ours. The singer of that band (Julien Mineau), helped on my previous album, ‘Un Bras de Distance Avec Le Soleil.’ The band is called Malajube. I don’t know if you know them?
JB: No.
CL: You should listen to it. It’s from the beginning of 2000, around 2002 to 2009, maybe. It was during the same period of The Strokes. I watched the documentary, ‘Meet Me in the Bathroom,’ (Pulse Films, XTR, British Film Institute, 2022), about The Strokes and they were really young. They were like, 19, I don’t know, but it reminded me of that scene at that time. Malajube was like The Strokes of Montreal, but they were singing in French. It’s pretty good rock music, indie rock. Very good!
JB: I wanted to ask because it has been coming up quite a lot and that is AI. Particularly with music and people who are not musicians going to AI to write songs for them and then putting them out on the internet and taking credit as if they wrote it.
CL: Yeah, it’s funny because my brother always does some songs with AI and I hate it. I hate it so much. It gives bad vibrations, I don’t know. It’s not good. It doesn’t feel like music to me, and with access to all the effects and how you can make a song perfect and the voice be perfect, everything is too perfect. I think we’ll reach a point when eventually we will accept something that’s more human. Maybe it’s the opposite, but I feel we will want to hear that in the future. Lately we filmed a performance, and it was done in one shot and it’s not all perfect. I thought, “This is hard. I would like this to be better!” After filming, I was like, “Wow, maybe it’s cool because it’s not perfect, because it’s real. I’m a human, and I’m not perfect.”
Then I had to breathe just knowing it’s not perfect. So, it made me feel more at peace with that. The fact that it’s beautiful that it’s not perfect, and the fact that you do things that are square, and that people already know before listening to it. I know AI can go far, and I know that in the future it can do everything, but from what I’ve heard, I can feel it sometimes that it’s AI. What I like about music is being surprised and this doesn’t surprise me. I know that many people who are not music listeners, or who are making a living at being a musician, like it. They’re reassured by music that they’ve heard before.
They like that song and the reason is they know the song by heart because of those three chords and that melody; they’ve lived with it for so long. That’s why when they hear the first notes, they’re like, “That’s my favorite song now!” When you’re a musician, you’re looking for a challenge or looking to be surprised. That’s what it is for me. For me, I think it validates my approach of not using the normal ways because I don’t necessarily know the normal way and I like that. AI is just boring. If that’s the direction we’re headed, and it’s going to be that dull, then it simply can’t be. There will be a backlash.
JB: On the listener side, I like making those connections with musicians and their work from an emotional or spiritual level. A musician who can tap into something I’m feeling. How is an AI-generated song going to do that for people? However, I could see how a vast majority of the population would not know the difference or feel the difference. Poor taste maybe?
CL: Well, maybe it’s not that they don’t have good taste, it’s just that they were not exposed to things that elevate their ability to appreciate music that’s more complex or different. That’s the radio and all the choices by the industry, to always make the same music play and that’s sad, because it’s like giving people hot dogs and hamburgers every day and then one day you arrive with sushi and they’re like, “Whoa! What’s that?” (Both laugh) If you alternate and are given different food every day, you are more open to different things and someday you’ll discover, “Oh, I like that new meal,” or something that you didn’t know before trying it. I think it’s sad that people are listening to radio or whatever, it’s just not good music but they think that that’s what good music is.
In Quebec, there are a lot of radio stations playing nostalgic music. Almost nothing came out recently and really nothing that is interesting or creative. And so, people often say that they don’t like music made in Quebec when in actuality, they just don’t know it because they have no way to get access to it. It’s hard through the streaming platforms just to find it. And if you listen to a lot of music from some other places in the world like America or where to find good French music, it is so vast. Now there are very few curators like there were in music stores before, and there were all those CD listening stations. You knew what was new, and now you have to do all that research for yourself. When you’re in the industry or when all your friends are involved in music, it’s easy because they’ll ask, “Have you listened to this?” So, we are still in it and that’s why, at our age, we still listen to new music. Otherwise, people will just listen to what they listened to when they were 15! That’s what they relate to.
JB: That is so true. Once I learned about college radio in Cleveland, I thought, “I don’t have to hear The Eagles every four minutes anymore!” (Catherine laughs).
CL: Same here. College and university radio are the best! There are shows with real music curators that we take the time to listen to. We know the different things we will hear in next week’s programming.
JB: There is a mentality out there that, “I’ve never heard it before, so it can’t be good.”
CL: Yeah, there’s also that. Many people around me, like my family, don’t know or they don’t understand that I do that in my life, but they don’t see me on TV, or they don’t hear me on the radio. Of course, you’ll never hear me on the radio, and there are many, many people who play music in Quebec and elsewhere in the world that you’ll never hear on commercial radio or see on popular TV shows, but it doesn’t mean it’s not valid. It doesn’t mean it should not exist because you don’t understand it.
It doesn’t take value from it (laughs). It’s important for some people. It’s important for me to do it, and I know that I communicate with people through that, and they can feel something through it. It doesn’t have to be big to make a difference. It gives ideas to other people and it can influence them. It’s important to have diversity … that’s what it’s all about. We have to have that. It’s so precious that we can have so many kinds of music. That’s something that AI could never imitate. Well, I hope.
JB: You spoke candidly about “lifelong loyalty” not being transferable during the transition at your former label. What is your advice to young artists about the difference between finding a “family” and finding a “business partner”? How has taking the reins independently changed your definition of “success” for this specific project?
CL: Good question! When I think back on my experience, a few things come to mind. First, when we’re young and receive a contract offer from a label, we respect whose roster (catalog) we like there’s that excitement of being chosen, of being wanted by a family we artistically identify with. It plays on our minds and can push us to make concessions, to accept clauses we don’t necessarily fully agree with, out of a need to belong. This may have been truer in the early 2000s when indie labels often had very strong artistic directions and acted somewhat like curators. Being chosen, in a way, validated our approach. It’s a very powerful feeling, and it can lead us to commit too quickly out of fear of losing the opportunity.
Otherwise, still based on my personal experience, I would say it’s very important to separate the people we like that work at a label from the company itself. I was so excited about the idea of being part of it. It never crossed my mind that a label could be sold, that things could turn wrong someday. No matter how close the relationship is with the people who run it and work there, a company will always remain a company. And as sad as it may sound, a company doesn’t have a heart.
JB: With bass more at the forefront on this record, why was it vital for you to create a record that demands the physical immersion of a heavy low-end?
CL: When I create music, there are certain instruments and specific lines that really move me, and the bass is definitely one of them. These are lines we craft carefully – lines that sing and that support the song. That is very personal, but I find that the bass is often too subtle in mixes, especially now that people listen to music on Bluetooth devices, where the sound is more compressed. Yet it’s an instrument that can bring so much. For me, it may be the instrument that ties everything together, adding warmth and grounding.
JB: You often start on guitar but almost “removed them all” during production. For the gearheads and musicians: what did the keyboards provide—emotionally or frequency-wise—that the guitar could no longer express for you?
CL: Above all, I believe it creates a completely different aesthetic. Like you, I don’t really like categorizing music, but in a very basic way, acoustic guitar is still associated with a more folk sound, and electric guitar with rock. That plays in my mind. By removing them early on in the process from our working demos, we’re less influenced by the energy of my guitar playing, and it already leaves space to imagine something else, to create music whose genre isn’t predetermined from the start. If we keep a strummed guitar, it will influence the artistic direction of the song. When we take it away, everything has to be built from scratch.
By working this way, I think I’m first trying to create emptiness, so that I can then play with negative space. I like my music to breathe. So even though I love keyboards and their unique sounds and color they confer to the songs, at the core it’s not really a question of frequency as much as a desire to create a playground with more possibilities, where we’re not starting with a constraint, and where we can play with the negative space we’ve created by doing this.
JB: You mentioned that three small bass notes can be the source of your deepest emotions. Is there a specific detail on ‘Les jours où il neige à tous les postes’ that you are most proud of—one that most listeners might miss, but that makes the whole song work for you?
CL: It’s true that I’m very attached to details, in life in general, and therefore in my music as well. For me, making an album is a very strange process, because before anyone outside the creative circle hears it, we are the only judges of the quality of the emotions we’re trying to create and of how well they come across. And since emotions are, to me, the most important thing in music, you don’t want to miss that. Throughout the creation of a song or an album, we, the creators, are the only audience able to measure the emotional impact of what’s being made.
Following that logic, it’s essential that certain moments move me and make me feel something – sometimes surprise, sometimes nostalgia, otherwise what is the purpose of the song. I have no control over other people’s emotions; the only test I can give a song is through my own judgment, my heart, my body. If I don’t feel anything, I don’t trust that someone else will. And isn’t the role of music to create emotion? What makes it even stranger is that these pieces are also a part of us, sort-of a reflection of who we are, and that we somehow have to fall in love with ourselves, or what we create that is deeply attached to us, for the duration of the process.
It may sound a bit self-centered, but it seems fundamental to me. You have to fall in love with your creation and care about every detail in order to nurture it throughout its construction. So, yes, of course, there are specific details that I prefer in my songs, but overall, “the love of these parts or details” is just deeply attached to the approach: I need to touch a certain level of emotions with one part or another during the process to feel a song is legit, that it has everything it needs to live its life on its own. My senses are my only way to measure it.
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