For several months, Lou-Adriane Cassidy has been the last third of the fabulous ephemeral group Le Roy, la Rose et le Lou[p]with whom she conquered the stages of Quebec in the company of her friends Ariane Roy and Thierry Larose. The dust has barely settled after the passage of this beautiful tornado when Cassidy restarts the machine with his third solo album. Lou, now Lou[p]transforms into… a werewolf. Beauty and her inner beasts come together in a record of fierce ambition and biting quality.
Over the last few weeks, Lou-Adriane Cassidy has released extracts and videos of this Diary of a Werewolfraising enthusiasm, but also curiosity. Because the 27-year-old artist has clearly taken an important sonic and creative turn with these 14 new songs. They are ample, dazzling as can be, but also surprising, textured, disjointed, they speak to each other in words and sounds, while forming a large whole on the surface of the skin.
We imagine the kind of board that detectives put up on their wall, with photos of suspects pinned up and connected by red ropes. Lou-Adriane bursts out laughing at this image, which she does not reject, but which she tempers. “I think it’s, all in all, quite simple, even if I think it’s an album that isn’t. »
Diary
Explanations. Diary of a Werewolfwhich appears on Friday, “it quickly became the idea of making my confessions, my diary,” explains Cassidy, who worked extensively with his partner, Alexandre Martel, an emeritus musician and director. “It was the exercise of really exposing my flaws or my wounds in a completely transparent way, in a completely honest way. Then sometimes raw, too. »
That’s simple, but it’s also complicated to speak with precision about one’s moods, beyond heartbreak. “I tried not to necessarily give myself the good role in this, and that’s also why the werewolf: it’s to expose my monster sides. »
Lou-Adriane, for example, delves into her torments in relation to her great friend Ariane Roy, with whom there is “a maze, a game of differences”, a jealousy coupled with an eternal love which began in childhood on the swings and which will end at the same place, in residence. On I’m going on vacationCassidy also deciphers her relationship to her job. “It’s a bit of a fable about a little girl who wants to make Music, then realizes the harsh reality! » She admits her “extreme romanticism” and the fact that she “lets herself be absolutely overcome by her emotions”. She also explores her bond with her daughter-in-law — “Yes I know I don’t have the right / Sometimes I wish that / That you were mine / Just mine”.
But what runs through this record is very much the story of his father, who abandoned his family until he was no longer there. Happy memories, at the cinema for example, mix with the trauma of this abandonment and its repercussions. “I had never managed to write songs about him,” confides Lou-Adriane. Years later, and with two albums under her belt, she now has the makings.
“I don’t know if these things can be cured, in the sense that I know it’s part of who I am. I made do with that. I think it comes with its positive points, of reinforcement and self-affirmation, and then perhaps even motivation. Because there’s always a part of me that’s going to want to prove him wrong…and then at the same time, of course, there’s the injuries, the abandonment, and all that. » A small silence filled with emotion crosses the room, the journalist expresses his sympathy. “Well no! I made the decision to talk about it, and when I make the decision to say in a song “When one day I have given up life, will you give me back mine, dad?” », I accept that it is put forward, that there is no filter. »
-Between pop and prog
It throbs so firmly on Diary of a Werewolfwhere everything was thought out down to the note and comma, says Cassidy. “There are no sentences that are there to fill in, everything has been carefully designed,” she says. And at the same time, I really wanted to make a musically ambitious album. With Alexandre Martel, we wanted big arrangements, big structures, extreme freedom in creation. »
In these songs where mythology, philosophy and the spirit of fairy tales hover, there are grandiose, almost disco strings, synthesizers and programming, harp and organ. Hot and cold collide, the melodies are powerful and we are often surprised, either by a sound or by breaks in tone.
“It doesn’t seem obvious, but basically, it’s very pop for me,” assures Lou-Adriane. A rich, erudite, intelligent pop, conscious of its codes, yes, certainly. We point out to him that there are traces of prog music. “I always had a little tendency! » she said laughing, confessing as much her love for Selling England by the Pound of Genesis that for Two by Celine Dion. Diary of a Werewolf is therefore a “tribute” to pop “in a very complex universe”.
And the scene? Four dates are on the schedule… and that’s it. There is a general performance in front of an audience in Joliette on February 6, a show at the Capitole de Québec on February 15 and two in Montreal at the Beanfield Theater, on February 20 and 21. “I want the show to be like this album,” she says. We build a scenography, a big lighting design. There will be eight of us on stage. It’s not a show that can be toured. » She fully accepts this choice, even if, generally speaking, she “finds it very important to make music travel” in this vast Quebec.
After that? Nothing on the agenda, rejoices Lou-Adriane Cassidy. “I’m tired. I toured with Le Roy, la Rose et le Lou[p]. And I haven’t stopped in recent years, with Hubert [Lenoir]Thierry [Larose]Alex Burger. This break is not a bad thing for me either. » In the meantime, watch out for the wolf, watch out for Lou!
