Musivision

The title of her second album, Musivision, “came about as a joke,” Laurence-Anne tells Apple Music. “It was inspired by the pink glasses I was wearing in the studio.” But at a certain point, what started as a laugh became rather apropos. “I’m a self-taught person, and I speak more in colors and images than in notes,” she says. “Musivision is my way of seeing music, through places and spaces.” That music has undergone a few shifts she since was first discovered at the 2017 Francouvertes competition: It began as more traditional folky fare, which then transitioned into groove-heavy indie rock, and which has since taken on an ethereal, dreamlike quality. It makes sense that these songs began in isolation, in a cottage, and weren’t composed on guitar, as she had done with her previous album, 2019’s Première apparition. “I did all the first drafts using little Casio keyboards on which I was able to create almost complete songs,” she says of the preliminary phase. Then, with the help of the same musicians as on Première apparition (Naomie De Lorimier, David Marchand, and Ariel Comtois), producer Félix Petit (Les Louanges), guitarist Julian Perreault, and drummer Samuel Joly, it all came together. Here she tells more about that process as she talks through the genesis of each of Musivision’s tracks.

“Indigo”
“The whole album allowed me to explore another part of my vocal range, and this song is probably the one where I sing the highest. There’s something a bit melancholic about it. It actually started with a poem I’d written just after waking up, when I was still in a near-dreamlike state. It’s something I rarely do, but I decided to get out my notebook and create some music based on this weird story about an enigmatic event binding the fates of two unknown people. For me, indigo is the color of mystery.”

“Musivision”
“It’s the memory of a funny kind of evening at Studio B-12. We’d found an old smashed-in loudspeaker, a turntable, and a stack of vinyl in the basement, and we hooked everything up to see if it all still worked. The sound that came out was flooded with distortion and it gave all the records we played a strange color. We loved it and started dancing. While that was going on, our sound technician decided to record it without telling us. When he played it for us later, we said to ourselves that it definitely needed to be included on the album.”

“Nyx”
“It’s the sequel to ‘Musivision.’ After an evening listening to old disco hits, we felt like doing a song along the same lines. On the demo, it was a completely different color, but then we gave it a totally different arrangement and title. There’s a spatial, astral theme here that is distinctive throughout the album.”

“Passerelle”
“This was another spontaneous idea. We’d just recorded ‘Cachette,’ and when we went out onto the porch we continued to hum the melody and we recorded it on an iPhone. We spent the rest of the evening walking outside and recording all sorts of stuff on our phones: ambient sounds, distant conversations. I love adding these kinds of things to my songs. I find it gives them lots of atmosphere.”

“Strange Feeling”
“It’s the very first track I wrote in English. I’d just returned from a trip where I’d spoken only in English, and it just came about like that, spontaneously. It’s very much inspired by Julee Cruise: There’s a gentleness but also a really strange side to it. It talks about imagining yourself inside someone else’s head, of chilling out watching the world through their eyes. I picture this space here as a kind of grand hall with a checkered floor and huge red drapes, exactly the same as in Twin Peaks.”

“Mars8”
“I created the album in Marsoui, in Gaspésie, and my working titles for the drafts were ‘Mars1,’ ‘Mars2,’ ‘Mars3,’ etcetera. I kept the name for this one because I was amused by the play on words ‘Marsoui/Mars huit.’ Musically, we improvised sounds, taking advantage of the studio’s numerous open areas. We positioned ourselves in different places so that we couldn’t see each other, and made noise with anything that was available. Ariel was moving her hands in a pile of rocks, Sam was walking around with a cable and sliding the plug over wooden slats, Nao was playing the organ, and I was beating a large drum.”

“Tempête”
“This song was inspired 100% by the weather on the day I composed it. There was this totally crazy snowstorm in Marsoui. Initially, it was my least favorite track. I think I was judging myself for starting a song with the refrain; I found it too mainstream, too pop. But I love that opening there at the end of the track, with the guitar solo that reminds me of Fleetwood Mac. That moment is probably the most luminous one on the album: It’s the moment immediately after the snowstorm.”

“Romance”
“Another improvisation we did in the studio. We were having a break and Nao sat down at the piano, then David went for his pedal steel. They began to play, and that’s when I went over to the piano and started singing. Right away, we felt we’d captured something we didn’t want to lose, but the technicians weren’t ready, so we played it in a loop until they’d managed to set up all the mics. What you hear on the album is the only take we recorded, and we kept it in its original version.”

“Quelques lunes”
“Another track with a spatial theme. It’s the only song on the album I composed on guitar. It’s very inspired by the melodies of the Cocteau Twins, a band I discovered recently that I’d listened to repeatedly and that was still going around in my head when I composed it. The group was a real revelation for me; I love their way of creating all-encompassing ambiance.”

“Pajaros”
“It means ‘birds’ in Spanish. This was also a first for me, even though it’s a language I’m quite fluent in because I lived in Mexico for a year when I was 17. I composed it during the first weeks of the pandemic. I’d just contacted a Mexican friend to see how he was experiencing the situation, and I was working on the last songs for the album. I had this melody but I hadn’t been able to write lyrics for it in French, so I started singing words in Spanish, and right away I loved the different sound it gave the song.”

“Cachette”
“I came close to opening the album with this track. It’s a return to the theme on ‘Passerelle,’ and in fact we recorded both of them the same evening. It’s part of the music I composed when I got back from a trip to Jordan, and I think I allowed myself to be inspired by Middle Eastern melodies. I’ve been listening to a lot of world music lately, especially Ethiopian and Turkish, and I think here it’s a blend of all that.”

“Soleil de cauchemar”
“It’s got an almost Afrobeat rhythm—quite danceable, happy, and full of light. But there’s also a strange side to it. I love those kinds of contradictions. The demo version was much more experimental. I was just getting used to my keyboards and I was creating loads of weird sounds. At first, there were lyrics from start to finish, but I decided to do away with almost all of it to create a sort of musical tension that keeps rising until the lyrics come in.”

“Géo”
“For me, this is the perfect one for rolling the end credits, and it’s mainly an echo of the track called ‘Géométrie’ that’s on the EP Accident that I released in summer 2020. The three songs on the EP should have been on the album, but the pandemic made me change my plans a bit. It’s a little nod that lets me close the loop I’d set in motion with the mini-album.”