Drawing on film, pop music, and the voices of the divas she listened to as a teenager, Quebec singer-songwriter Rosie Valland’s third album, Emmanuelle, is both a return to her roots and a new chapter in her artistry. “Lots of its references are from the '90s and early 2000s,” Valland—whose given name is Rose-Emmanuelle—tells Apple Music about the LP. "It was all very clear, colorful, engaging… [the era] inspired me." Her writing during the pandemic was shaped by memories, but it also focused on the future. “I was confident we’d pull through and I felt we needed some light,” she says. "I wanted fast-paced, solid rhythms, something danceable that would make people feel good, myself included. Suffused with a sense of freedom, and coproduced by Frédéric Levac—her partner in music and in life—Valland’s album conveys her vision, no holds barred. “In the end, that’s what aging’s all about,” she adds. "We get rid of things, we break free, and every time, we express a new truth.” Here Valland talks through each of the album’s songs. "Une pause" “I felt like writing a love song. When you love someone to the point of wanting to take on some of the pain they’re feeling, and find it so unfair that you can’t share those kinds of things—to me, that’s ultimate love. I thought it would be very bold to start off a cappella. And because my voice is what binds each tune, it gradually defined my vision of the album: it was going to be my voice; that’s my instrument, that’s where my strength lies.” "Tour à tour" “I’d noticed that, with my boyfriend, we tended to talk more about our early days, to see only the positive side of our story. But in a way, we do that with everything: we remember the good times and want to forget the darker moments. The song evokes that feeling that you’re sometimes twisting the truth a little bit. And, actually, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s like ‘dancing before the rain’ and acting as though nothing has happened, while reminiscing about the good old days.” "Attiser le dilemme" “It’s like my way of saying ‘me too’ on the anniversary of the movement, which changed my life. I used to think there was only one scenario for sexual assault, like say rape in a back alley. Reading the accounts that also described the abuse of power, and recognizing myself in so many of them, made me realize that there’ve been events in my life that I’ve downplayed. I’ve experienced similar things in my music career. This song is therefore a way of talking about it; in fact, it’s the only way I can talk about it. I wanted to emphasize the strength of women [of the #MeToo movement], who I call the queens, and to thank them for what it has brought me in my personal life. Yes, there’s the public aspect, but I think the movement has also changed lots of human relationships, that it’s sparked lots of debate, in lots of different spheres.” "10/03, 02/21 et 09/19" “It’s a pop album, but I didn’t want it to seem as though it was just a series of singles. I wanted an album you can listen to from start to finish, that flowed smoothly. And because I’m from a very musical background, I thought of adding interludes. Each title is actually a date associated with a specific period in my life. The first is linked to Jeux d’enfants [Love Me If You Dare], a French film I watched over and over again when I was young. It tells the story of a Romeo and Juliet type of impossible love, and it had a significant bearing on my idea of love.” "Exil" “I wrote this one in Kamouraska, during a week when I’d rented this tiny house. It’s as though the limited physical space awakened things, and it made me feel good. I’ve been living with my boyfriend in a big house in the country for five or six years now. Being in a place as small as my first apartment, a tiny one-bedroom in Villeray where I lived alone and loved it, made me look back on my journey these past few years. It’s a love song, but one that also gives a little nod to the ground I’ve covered. There’s that feeling of being bored with the other person, but also of being bored with yourself.” "Non merci" “At first glance, it could be about mansplaining, but I didn’t want to just address male-female relationships. When somebody makes you feel inferior, as though you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s very frustrating, irrespective of gender, and it’s happened to me a few times, as a woman in the music industry. I truly hate that feeling. This is my arrogant song; it’s what I’d like to say to the people who made me feel that way. Musically, I thought it would be fun to compose something very danceable and to turn those moments into something that makes you feel good. On my other albums, there are tracks that are more pop, but never in an overstated or brazen way. That’s partly because of the people I worked with, who weren’t from that milieu. I think I put my voice on hold for years. It wasn’t that aspect of my songs I wanted to safeguard. The vocals were often what we did last, but I’ve always dreamed of being a singer, not an indie musician. I’ve gone back to what was originally my driving force.” "Mantra" “It echoes ‘Une pause’ and that willingness to take care of the other person. What also emerges in the lyrics is the fatigue that sets in, because you can’t want more than what the person you’re helping wants. I don’t have kids, but I liked that idea of watching somebody sleep, because when you’re asleep you’re so vulnerable, and the person watching wants the other to rest and everything to be perfect.” "Ici-bas" “Like many women, my hormone levels fluctuate over the month, which means there are times when I feel very, very low. But I always pull through. I wake up one morning and I’m feeling better. The song talks about that moment, when you’re not doing so well, when you finally see a little glimmer of something positive and you want to cling on to it. It also underlines our collective strength. Simply living and getting through it is sometimes enough.” "Une fin féconde" “Eco-anxiety is something that’s just part of who I am. It’s hard to have faith in the future, to have dreams. For me, ‘Une fin féconde’ ['A fruitful end'] means that clearly there must be an end to this sort of perpetual growth, but I hope that something good will come of it—that it’s not simply some apocalyptic ending. Each generation has its own end of the world, but it seeks to change things, and I like to think that this willingness will repeat itself.”