“Jabalon”, the vulnerability in pop mode of singer LouisLudwig – rts.ch

In eleven titles, sometimes intimate and introspective or sometimes more expressive and lyrical, LouisLudwig focuses over the course of “Jabalon” on personal themes such as deceptive human relationships and other disillusionments, depression, the relationship with time and the body, always leaving a central place for vulnerability.

A theme that imposed itself on LouisLudwig without him really having an explanation, he indicated in the Vertigo show on December 9: “As a cisgender, straight, wealthy white man, I have little fights to fight because I am blessed with all the privileges that one could hope for But at the same time, all I can say is to evoke a little of this vulnerability. It is not cynical or fatalistic, but it is. It’s just about saying that we have our bright and not so bright moments, without euphemisms.”

Exploring human flaws

He also adds this vulnerability to his Music, by drawing from different genres, by being influenced by different groups without thinking, by singing sometimes in French, sometimes in English or by not singing. “It’s actually a sort of welcoming position,” says Louis Ludwig. “I deal with what is there, what comes and what is. I don’t try to go beyond certain limits or correspond to something . In that way, it’s perhaps a little vulnerable.”

This omnipresence of fragility is undoubtedly also due to his profession as a psychiatrist. Just like the other way around, the singer concedes that it was the interest in this subject that led him to fields such as psychiatry, hypnosis and even music.

Without morals, but still making somewhat human judgments about existence, LouisLudwig manages in “Jabalon” to proceed through associations of ideas and personal revelations. The faults therefore mainly occupy the repertoire of this second singular solo album whose title is borrowed from Jean Genet’s novel “Querelle de Brest”. The story of a criminal sailor whose common theme is a song called “The Sailor’s Star”.

The necessary inspirational influences

In addition to other literary references, certain scattered musical influences surface in these eleven chiaroscuro songs, from Bertrand Belin to Alain Bashung for the sung parts, from François de Roubaix to Connan Mockasin for the instrumental tracks.

One of the strongest tracks from this second album is called “Le sens de la nuit”. If the musical atmosphere of the song was inspired by a group called The Saxophones, the meaning of this text dealing with a depressed, somewhat dissociated guy, who is looking for his way without finding it, appeared to him – as often – afterwards: “But not as an epiphany, he swears. The moment this man accepts this state of things, when he shows himself to be vulnerable in short, he finds meaning in his life”.

Born like all of its songs on LouisLudwig’s computer, “Le sens de la nuit” rubs shoulders with other titles triggered by other sound universes, such as “A châteaux Ouverts” inspired by the lyrical pop of Melody’s Echo Chamber, “Asleep Drummer” inspired by the eccentric rocker Father John Misty or “Third Peak” evoked by Angelo Badalamenti, the composer of the distressing soundtrack of “Twin Peaks.”

Obviously, LouisLudwig quickly deviates from his atmospheric sources of inspiration to construct his own sound climates. However, he concedes a lack of self-confidence when it comes to the act of creation: “I often agree with the last person to speak and am therefore very easily influenced, while accepting it. If I don’t start from nothing , I can’t achieve anything, so other artists just give me a direction to position myself well, to allow me to start the second one before moving very far away from their influences.

Olivier Horner

Louis Ludwig, “Jabalon” (Irascible Music). Tomorrow 24 May 2024.

In concert at Bleu Lézard, Lausanne, December 19, 2024 alongside Yalisco and No Phase.