Abracadabra! Klô Pelgag is Back

The curtain rises on this Thursday evening at MTelus, a few minutes after the powerful punk-prog discharge of the Angine de poitrine duo, just the thing for atrial fibrillation. In the chiaroscuro of special occasions, keyboards are pushed towards the stage. Then percussion, then more cossins. When the lutherie and its users are well in place… abracadabra!

She appears at center stage, a strange creature masked in white, wearing an oversized parka at the top of the central staircase. She extends her limbs to the thunderous applause of the crowd. Underneath the parka is a crazy cosmonaut costume. Under the costume, we discover Klô Pelgag.

This set-up is the opportunity to play the instrumental Le sang des fruits rouges, initiated by a drone decorated with avian flutes, high-pitched and fluttering notes, on the verge of annoyance.

It really kicks off with Pythagore, chanted like a synth-pop anthem garnished with keyboards, wrapped in heartfelt vocals, cheered on by the fans.

Pelgag follows up with Coupable, part chamber pop, part dream pop. On the final track of this tale of a friendship conflict that weighs heavily on the story’s narrator, the singer rehearses her chorus, including a high-frequency “je n’ai pas dormi”, before striding back up the stage stairs with some heartfelt incantations.

The Quebec star then takes a love bath, enjoys minutes of acclaim and addresses her audience before claiming to wear a very large jacket, because she’s become a professional over the years. Needless to say, this absurdist humor suits the artist well, and she’s been making good use of it since her debut.

Here we are À l’ombre des cyprès… parfum de muguet…. ideal funeral in prospect, says the song as 5 white T-shirts jump around the stage with their instruments in front – keyboards, synths, percussion, bass, guitar. Fans know the song by heart, and a huge monodic chorus accompanies the soloist in full possession of her powers.

“Someone bring me a song from beyond the grave, and let’s make it jump!” she commands, before performing Les instants d’équilibre… a reminder of a past that we enter only to leave again, a past that we guess is unbalanced, unbridled to say the least, fiery, ardent.

A little Afro-Caribbean beat follows, and the balloon jacket is back and applauded for Lettre à un jeune poète, a motherly song bathed in sincere concern and benevolence.

The musician settles in at the keyboard, proposing a love song “to remedy the lack of love” from which the world is currently suffering: it’s Sans visage, the evocation of a journey for two, the proximity being such that one would recognize the other without a face. A pretty ballad with a slow, steady tempo, topped by space-pop keyboards and celestial vocals.

We tune in, and soon there will be flute sounds, played staccato. The keyboard imitates the piano and we recognize Le goût des mangues, a chamber pop evoking the return of mild temperatures.

Klô Pelgag draws on her recent opus, Abracadabra, before which she says she was “well into anxiety”, i.e. inspired to write this song served up this time in piano-vocal formula, proud to use this keyboard model she had gotten rid of before buying it back.” Keep your old things and store them with your parents!” As she sings this work oscillating between the hope and dismay produced by the current situation, we understand that Les puits de lumière “lets the rain in”.

A huge red square overhangs the stage, Jim Morrison is a wandering, a dream where we pass through paintings whose meaning we seek, where we’d like to “hold what we touch with our fingertips.”

Fever Ray could well have composed the quasi-electro song that follows: Décembre has paroxysmal moments, performed with fervor in front of the huge square backdrop, this time black, around which pink and blue waltz. Back at the top of the central staircase, Klô Pelgag lets her hair down. The intensity just went up a few notches,

The black square as a backdrop is now delineated by multicolored lines, and a funky rhythm settles in. It’s Deux jours et deux nuits, electro-pop for excited night owls, two days and two nights of dancing on the beach, following the path traced by seashells.

The party really gets going in this sold-out Mtelus. Clearly, the drama had been carefully planned, and the hot crowd welcomed Mélamine as they faded in to a well-mastered krautrock.

The crowd has reached a pinnacle of excitement, and the song Umami “comes from the heart”, where we “spend our nights thinking about the day”. Cheerful groove, cheerful indie-pop, here’s a Klô Pelgag classic and re-krautrock with Rémora.

Long thanks, introduction of colleagues, and a long conclusion spread over three encores. Les animaux, Les ferrofluides-fleurs, Comme des rames and… abracadabra we left, delighted, satiated with this Klô Pelgag crossing a vast creative plateau.

PROGRAM :

Le sang des fruits rouges

Pythagore

Libre

Coupable

À l’ombre des cyprès

Les instants d’équilibre

Lettre à une jeune poète

Sans visage

Le goût des mangues

Les puits de lumière

Jim Morrison