Though I know she has been around and quite popular in Quebec for several years, I first discovered the Francophone art-pop sensation, Lou-Adriane Cassidy, during FME back in 2022. So her Main Stage show was kind of a full-circle moment for me. In the years since her 2022 FME show, Lou-Adriane Cassidy has released three albums, her most recent ones being Triste Animal and Journal d’un Loup-Garou, and she has upgraded from the indie rocker who sometimes plays guitar (like her FME 2022 show) to the powerful leader of a wonderful disco-funk band.
Her performance of “Jamais tout à fait,” was mesmerizing, her voice slowing to a whisper in adult contemporary, jazzy fashion, and then signalling her band to release the Italo disco-tinged synth line. She also turned the entire crowd into her personal backing vocalists during “Valse frustrée”—thousands of voices swallowed up into the Abitibi night air.
I prefer the jammier pulse of Lou-Adriane Cassidy’s Triste Animal, especially live—it’s like watching someone flip between a séance and a bonfire hang. Her voice held both registers without strain, dropping into a near-growl one moment and floating somewhere angelic and clinging to the night air the next.
