SOPHOMORE ALBUM OVALE OUT MAY 19 ON BOILED RECORDS
FRENCH EXPERIMENTAL POP ENSEMBLE PERFORMS MARCH 9 IN TORONTO AND MARCH 12 IN MONTREAL
BUY / STREAM “MAISON” HERE
PRE-ORDER OVALE HERE
PHOTO CREDIT: STACY LEE // HI-RES DOWNLOAD
Lune très belle is the nü fusion project of Montréal composer, poet, and singer Frédérique Roy. Her music is an open form, at once unstable and reassuring: a pop neology of environmental sound. Today, Roy shares new song “Maison” from Lune très belle’s vastly beautiful second album Ovale. Joined by an ensemble featuring Robin Dann (vocals, recorder) and Philippe Melanson (modular synth) of Toronto indie pop collagists Bernice, Samuel Gougoux (electric bass) of VICTIME, Corridor, Kee Avil, and Simon Labbé (guitar, synths), “Maison” brims with the essence of Ovale as one of the album’s most patient and expansive compositions. Viscous melodies fill the rooms of a shape-shifting house, coalescing into impressions of incidental jazz and anti-form chamber pop, with texts sung delicately in French about evolving memories of a familiar place.
“Staying with confusion gives a certain drive,” Roy explains. “Through the uncertainty of a gaze, the house changes shape, becomes a playground to find home. Its structure, its beams awaken memory and invent memories. ‘Maison’ is perhaps an ode to contradictions, an invitation to abandon oneself to them.”
The “deliberately deliberate” music of Lune très belle follows a tortuous path that evokes the synergy of the players and its elements. A platform for Roy to explore new sounds through new collaborations, her compositions, words, and arrangements are beautifully intuited through its vessels. “Ovale would never sound the way it sounds without the creativity, generosity, talent and input of Simon, Sam, Phil and Robin. I came with compositions, words and arrangement ideas,” Roy says, “and their ability to interpret, improvise, and enter in a dialogue with the material played a big role in actualizing the arrangements and the making of the album.”
WATCH / SHARE “LA MITE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “LA MITE” HERE
Lune très belle originated in 2016 with its debut album Ô la lune released in 2019, a raw and mostly live recording that Roy describes as a series of long shared breaths. More akin to the sound of wind chimes in waves, the recently released Ovale single “La mite” is lushly draped with melody; while “Mona” embodies the allure of a shifting castle where rooms of different dimensions and volumes bleed into each other. The result is a boldly tentative compositional experience that visits the vaporous spaces of artists like Grouper, with the sonorous palette of Pat Metheny, anchored in the pop affliction of Arthur Russell.
LISTEN TO “MONA” HERE
A patient process of care and diligence, at times involving onerous negotiations and confusion, Ovale resolves itself in the beauty of the unresolvable. Roy’s work unfolds through a slow process of tending to sensations and the affective traces they leave on her, turning these traces into words and music just as fleeting. To stay true to the oblique nature of this form of translation, the texts and songs she assembles propose no clear paths to follow, but the process of wandering itself as an image. Roy, who is a published poet and works by day providing alternative resources to psychiatrized people, has created in Ovale a fluid, softly whelming suite of natural music that is built on interaction and closeness. “New sounds through new collaborations” is Roy’s driving force. “I wanted to make a coherent object, truthful to my instinct.” From her elegant poetry to its beautiful articulation, Lune très belle’s Ovale is elemental and elastic – the exhale at the beginning of a new season.
PRE-ORDER OVALE HERE
ALBUM ARTWORK // HI-RES DOWNLOAD
OVALE TRACKLISTING
1. La mite
2. Refrain skylark
3. Moisissure
4. Maison
5. Refrain
6. Mona
7. Dogue
8. Siffleux
9. Œil magique
10. Refrain choral
11. Bye bye
“MAISON” SINGLE ARTWORK // HI-RES DOWNLOAD
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