Additional Information
Run Body Run. The idea behind its design relates to the feeling of paralysis linked to fear, particularly when you start to realize that you need to tell your body to move.
Next Friday at 8 p.m., Yolande Laroche will share the stage at O Patro Vys with Améry and Jane Inc. as part of the Taverne Tour. A multifaceted artist who has been active on the music scene for over ten years, she will be presenting new material that will soon be released in the form of an album.
I was lucky enough to hear a preview of this new project. True to form, the artist explores a direction that is difficult to trace back to her previous projects: the pop-rock band Pony Girl, her solo project Orchidae, or her instrumental ambient project mal/aimé, to name a few. The direction is completely different and the proposal is frank. Within a danceable electronic aesthetic, the serious tone of her voice exposes us to lyrics with confrontational, almost violent images.
For a demo, it’s at a very advanced stage of completion. The overall form is complete and the sounds are clearly defined. My curiosity is definitely piqued for what’s to come from the album Run Body Run.
Diversity of approach
Pan M 360: You have the projects Orchidae, Pony Girl, mal/aimé, and Yolande Laroche, the eponymous project through which you released an EP in 2022.
Yolande: There is also another project called KayFayb, which features two members of FET.NAT, Lindsay Willman and Pierre-Luc Clément. It’s a performance project, a bit like violent jazz. We haven’t recorded anything, apart from a few short videos here and there on the internet.
Pan M 360: One topic I wanted to discuss with you concerns the diversity of your approach to music, which is particularly evident in your work as a multi-instrumentalist. You sing, play the clarinet, keyboard, and guitar too, right?
Yolande: I’ve also just started playing the alto saxophone a little bit; I bought one last year. I love trying new instruments, but it’s still new to me, both the saxophone and the guitar.
I see lots of people doing new things all the time, and I thought to myself, “Why should I stop doing that? I can do it too.” I’ve just started trying to convince myself that I can start new things.
Pan M 360: It can be difficult at times, especially if you already have a certain level of proficiency with other instruments, to be inexperienced for a while.
Yolande: The classical world demands perfection. It’s really difficult sometimes, but over the years, I’ve had to face the fact that I wanted to sing, but I wasn’t very good at it. I had to start from scratch, and even though it hurt, it had to be done.
Pan M 360: As with instruments, you seem to place importance on maintaining multiple projects and cultivating a plurality of artistic expression.
Yolande:Pony Girl was my first pop project after leaving the classical world. We made two albums and went on tour. After a big Canadian tour that was very intense emotionally, we took a break for about eight months without playing or recording. It made me feel really lost because I had put so much of my artistic identity into that band, and I started to question the fact that it was based on just one project.
After trying my hand at experimental instrumental music, I wanted to sing. So I started writing for voice and piano, and Orchidae was born from that. Kayfayb came from a desire to move toward experimental music. I connected with Pierre-Luc Clément and Lindsay Wallman. Together, we created a trio. What we do on stage is truly magical, but it may not be a project that will be recorded.
After that, I became interested in electronic music and ended up with Yolande Laroche, my most recent project. I think this is the project in which my artistic expression has developed the most.
I wanted to embody the different characters I’ve accumulated over the years. I really want to say something that’s important to me.
A new direction: temporal pluralities
Pan M 360: I found that with your eponymous project in particular, you are definitely moving in a more experimental and very direct direction. With mal/aimé, there is something more abstract, perhaps because the music is purely instrumental, without lyrics. For the EP Journal d’enfance, did you collaborate with Nick Schofield?
Yolande: Yes, and actually, Nick Schofield is my husband. We produced Orchidae together for an album I released last year. We’ve been together as a couple for five years. I have an office in our house and he has an office at the other end of our house. When I was working on the project, he would sometimes come into my office and we would discuss ideas, but I wanted to produce this album on my own and he gave me complete freedom to do so. He was still an excellent guide.
There’s always music playing in our house. He works on his stuff and invites me into his office to discuss his music. It’s a really beautiful connection between him and me. I can send you some demos if you’d like to listen! The lyrics are pretty intense… I can’t wait to share it with you.
Pan M 360: Absolutely! Is that the equipment you’ll be playing next week on the Taverne Tour?
Yolande: Yes, I’m going to play it. It’s the kind of thing I like to try. I’ve played this material a few times already. It was by playing that I was able to continue writing the lyrics. It really helped me to put myself inside the music so I could continue developing it.
Pan M 360: Something that particularly struck me about the EP Journal d’enfance was the inspiration you drew from your childhood diaries. What was it that appealed to you about digging so far back?
Yolande: For Journal d’enfance, I had the opportunity to do a creative residency at Studio Daïmon in Hull. Nick and I went on this residency in 2022 or 2023. We had three days and we just improvised together.
Before the residency, I went through my parents’ house to find the journals my mother had given me when I was young. At the time, she thought I was going through a lot of emotions and that it might be a good idea for me to put them down on paper. I decided to try to set the words I found interesting to music. I found the process really fun.
The first track on the EP is a recipe for a magic potion. The second is about the magic of the ocean, at a time when I was a little obsessed with The Little Mermaid. The third describes a strong feeling of rage, which I think was directed at my brother. I remember thinking as I was writing that I needed to end on a more cheerful note. So I wrote, “Let’s go to the wave pool.”
Those were very raw, very pure moments. I think that as adults, we tend to impose filters on ourselves that don’t exist when we’re children. Today, I try to keep up the habit of journaling by writing often. I also have a note in my phone where I write down lyrics or ideas all the time.
Multi-channel composition and post-production
Pan M 360: At Daïmon Studio, you worked on compositions in ambisonic format. 7.1?
Yolande: Yes, exactly.
Pan M 360: How much did that affect the composition process?
Yolande: It was really fun. We got to decide how we wanted to do the spatial mix. In the first room, for example, the voices come from above your head, from the sides, from behind, and from in front. We got to play with the musical segments and make them spin around us. I found it really interesting.
Actually, I haven’t had much opportunity to present these pieces in ambisonic format. I did it once at Pique, a festival in Ottawa. The layout was a little different, with the speakers on stands arranged in a semicircle.
Pan M 360: And what was the layout like in the studio?
Yolande: It seems to me that there was a pair of speakers at the front and one in the center, two on the ceiling, and then one on each side at the back.
Pan M 360: You were also involved in the post-production stages of this project. Did you do the mixing and mastering directly in the studio?
Yolande: Yes, we had three days, and I wanted us to have a finished product when we left. It wasn’t something I wanted to take home with me. Nick and I set ourselves that challenge.
Pan M 360: Three days is the amount of time it usually takes you to compose three pieces, right?
Yolande: Not usually. It takes me a long time! I’m someone who thinks a lot, and I rarely stick with my first idea. I also need time for the lyrics, to sit with them.
Pan M 360: So you imposed a certain spontaneity on yourself during the residency.
Yolande: Yes, definitely. I think doing it that way added a certain element of magic for us.
Pan M 360: In your other projects, are you ever involved in post-production?
Yolande: Normally, you hire someone to do that. I don’t consider myself an expert at mixing. I like playing around with it, but there’s a lot I don’t know yet. I started using Ableton in 2019. For me, it’s still a new tool. I’m still discovering new features every time I use it.
Pan M 360: We are always learning!
Project in development
Yolande: The album I’m going to release under Yolande Laroche, the one I’m going to present at Taverne Tour, was composed exclusively in Ableton with my synthesizers, and the lyrics came later. It was definitely a new way of working for me.
Pan M 360: What will it be called?
Yolande: Run Body Run. The idea behind its design relates to the feeling of paralysis linked to fear, particularly when you start to realize that you need to tell your body to move. So I try to embody my fears and put those feelings into words and music.
In terms of aesthetics, I was inspired by a performance by Marie Davidson that I saw at Mutek last year. When I got home, I gave myself a month to make an album, with a view to presenting new pieces at an upcoming show. I started composing on Ableton every day, trying to create what I imagined to be my personal embodiment of the energy of Marie Davidson’s show.
Pan M 360: So once again, you’re going to be approaching a completely different musical style with this project. None of your projects have touched on purely electronic dance music yet, have they?
Yolande: That’s right. For the past few years, I’ve been going to more and more DJ sets, and I love going dancing. It’s so liberating to move your body to this kind of music.
Some of my other projects show a more vulnerable side of me, like Orchidae. I needed to embody that character in order to get through some sadder emotions and regain my confidence. I think now I’m ready to dance. I feel like moving a little.
Pan M 360: It’s going to be quite a varied evening next Friday. You’ll be sharing the stage with Améry and Jane Inc., is that right?
Yolande: Yes, that’s right. I opened for Jane Inc. with Pony Girl a few years ago, I think it was in Calgary. She’s really fantastic, I can’t wait to see her again! I don’t know Améry, but I’m looking forward to discovering her.
Pan M 360: Same here!
