The last few years were a period of upheaval for a lot of folks. For Quebec country-folk duo Les sœurs Boulay, that meant not only navigating the pandemic, but also issuing a series of denunciations of sexual misconduct that led them to part ways with their record label, Dare to Care, and, in a number of ways, start anew. “We realised that, even though we felt we’d been burned by the music community and were even disgusted at one point, we wouldn’t be able to stop writing songs,” Stéphanie Boulay tells Apple Music. "It’s truly that love for creation that has allowed us to rise from the ashes.” Following 2019’s La mort des étoiles, which sister Mélanie Boulay describes as “a somewhat gloomy album of disillusionment,” Échapper à la nuit (translation: “escape the night”), which they made with producer Connor Seidel, often takes on a pop vibe while conveying resilience and light. This has not, however, prevented Les sœurs Boulay from squarely addressing a number of sensitive issues, including domestic violence and comments on social media. And they do so across the album’s two parts: the first, written after Mélanie Boulay gave birth, is tinged with electronic and synthetic sounds, while the second, created during her pregnancy, is more in keeping with their piano/guitar roots. Here, Les sœurs Boulay outline their escape plan, track by track. “Je vais te faire danser” Mélanie Boulay: “This song stems from our belief that genuineness isn’t something that’s really applauded. It’s a word that’s highly praised in our society. It’s a value everyone likes, but in real life, people have trouble hearing the truth when it’s not what they’d been expecting.” “Antigone” MB: “It came about just after the wave of denunciations. We were in the process of repositioning ourselves in our career, in a period of deep reflection. We said to ourselves that if we continued, we’d have to make peace with the things we left behind. Musically, it’s the beginning of a new era. Our percussionist Robbie Kuster came into the studio with all kinds of really weird instruments, like a glass marimba. He started playing strange, very mystical rhythms, which didn’t sound very folk. It led to something more ‘chemical’ in terms of the sound.” “Pas sa mère” SB: “The idea for this one came about after reading the book La blonde de papa by Valérie Roberts, and more specifically the story of Catherine Brisson. She says, ‘My stepdaughters, I’m not their mother, but they’re my daughters,’ which we say almost word for word in the lyrics. Stepmothers are rarely given a voice in the public arena. It’s as though it’s taboo to put a name to our problems, even though half the families in Quebec are blended ones. I wanted stepmothers and stepfathers to be able to say, ‘Finally, someone who understands me’ when they heard this song.” “Les lumières dans le ciel” MB: “It’s the first single, and I think it’s the song that goes furthest in terms of the aesthetics explored for the album. It’s the most pop, the most synthetic, the most danceable.” SB: “We listen to a lot of pop, a lot of very polished, surgical music, but we’d never gone there ourselves. The song came about after hearing a scientist assert during a Radio-Canada interview that aliens very likely existed, while we’ve been saying for years that people who talk about such things have mental health problems. I think it’s cool that the world of sound is a bit extraterrestrial.” “Comme si” SB: “It’s a song that talks about family ties and their supposedly inevitable nature. It calls this into question—it talks about dysfunctional families, domestic violence. It’s always existed, but it seems that nowadays, the media focuses more on feminicide and spousal violence. It’s an issue we feel very strongly about and always have.” “T’as gardé le silence” MB: “I think it’s important that each individual assumes their share of the responsibility, as a member of society, when it comes to sexual violence. In a way, everyone is a witness, while also being collateral victims. Undoing these power relationships is complicated. It’s hard to know how to talk about it, or if we can talk about it when it hasn’t happened to us…What is our role in all of this, and what can we do to help put a stop to it?” SB: “It’s one of the tracks we rewrote the most. To adopt a stance where you say things as they are without overly candy-coating them, but without apportioning blame. When we got to the studio, Connor took out this shabby little keyboard and put an arpeggiator on it. Mel sat down at the piano and just played notes, and the machine then created the arrangements. You press a button, and the tune starts playing. It’s pretty magical.” “Interlude” MB: “It’s little moments in the studio that Connor pieced together. He put certain things in reverse. He worked his magic. We needed some breathing space between the song before and the one that follows.” “Surtout, surtout” SB: “It’s a lighthearted, happy-go-lucky song. We take people on a boat ride. You think you’re going somewhere and then the refrain kicks in, and you’re heading elsewhere. It talks about conflict and controversy. We spent a lot of time on social media pointlessly arguing with people. We worked ourselves into such an emotional state for nothing. It’s a little reminder to ourselves that when something happens and you feel as if it’s the end of the world, well, the week after, there’ll be something else and all that will have been forgotten.” “Faire à la tête de l’eau” MB: “Someone said to me, ‘Hey, I’ve got a sentence for you.’ There’d been a flood at this person’s place, and they couldn’t find the source of the problem, and the contractor said, ‘I’m going to need to be able to read the water’s mind.’ I thought it sounded really nice.” SB: “It means understanding which path will be the smoothest for going with the flow in life. At the time, I wasn’t doing well at all. I needed some gentleness. And the aquatic atmosphere created by Robbie’s weird instruments really reflects the tone of the lyrics.” “Échapper à la nuit” MB: “I think this is the one that best reflects the project as a whole. Everything we’ve just said is condensed here and what stands out is that, when we look back on the last few years, on the good and not so good career moves we’ve made, we can say that we wouldn’t have done things differently because that’s what makes us who we are today.” SB: “I think it’s the only one where the entire team was in the studio at the same time. We weren’t happy with where the tune was going and were trying to fight it. In the end, our pianist Félix Leblanc started playing strange notes on a Juno, a vintage keyboard. As if it needed to have a slightly crazy, less traditional side to it for it to work.” “Tu cherches tes souliers” SB: “It talks about domestic violence, but from a child’s perspective. In the song, it’s a child talking to an abused parent. He doesn’t understand that if Mommy can’t help him, it’s because Mommy is too busy protecting herself from Daddy. He only sees that there’s nobody there for him. It was hard to write because we didn’t want to point the finger of blame at the victim; we just wanted to make an observation. We’ve always told the harsh truths, but we’d hide behind the beauty of the words. Here, we say things as they are, and I find that really terrifying.” “Laisse aller la vie” SB: “It says, ‘OK, that’s enough. I’m not going to let all this destroy me. I’m going to set my sights on what’s truly important. Once the dust has settled, I’ll leave it there and never go near it again.'”