Having been part of the Grand Jury that selected the ultimate winner of the 2025 Polaris Prize, awarded to Yves Jarvis on Tuesday, September 16, at Massey Hall in Toronto, I am focusing on the winner.
All I can tell you about the Grand Jury is that I knew the identities of the three ultimate finalists, which you will never learn except for the winner—we are bound by secrecy, we signed a document to that effect. You should also know that no member of the Grand Jury knew on Tuesday who would ascend to the throne. All I can tell you beyond that are my impressions of Yves Jarvis’s recent work, which I have been following since his Montreal debut under the pseudonym Un Blonde.
Raised in Calgary and based in Montréal, Jean Sébastien Yves Audet, his real name, is a very special creature.
I interviewed him a few times, attended several of his concerts, and… grew a little tired of his changing career path, which was disconcerting at times. Of course, I always knew he was prolific and gifted: a seasoned multi-instrumentalist, excellent singer, very good arranger, lo-fi producer, good lyricist, conductor, improviser, architect of an absolutely unique landscape. Knowing him maybe a little too well, it took me a while to focus on listening to All Cylinders when it was released last February, now considered the best Canadian album by the Polaris community.
Then the long list was made public, followed by the short list, and I listened carefully to this album from the start of the elimination rounds. A real grower, this album has a wow factor that gradually reveals itself with each listen, so much so that I can now say that this album is quite simply excellent.
One observes the maturity achieved, the coherence of this craft in all this apparent jumble, whose order is revealed as one listens. Orchestral folk, high-level choral singing, psychedelic pop, orchestral soul/R&B, jazz, rock, fine instrumentation, all performed by the artist.
Like the best self-producers and one-man bands in the pop world, Yves Jarvis has sewn together all the pieces of his work, tied together all the components of his composite art, and thus reached an exceptional level.
Once again, Montreal takes home the Polaris! As for French expression, however, we’ll have to wait and see… or maybe we won’t. But that’s another story.
