Additional Information
Montreal’s ambient dream pop artist, Naomie de Lorimier, has performed within various projects in Quebec’s underground for many years, such as playing with Klô Pelgag, Joni Void, Laurence-Anne, and more recently, Jonathan Personne as well as Lumière. With her own project, N Nao—a collaboration between her writing partner, Charles Marsolais-Ricard, Lysandre Ménard (Lysandre, Helena Deland), Étienne Dupré (Duu, zouz, Klô Pelgag), and Samuel Gougoux (TDA, Corridor, Kee Avil, VICTIME)—de Lorimier creates haunting and meaningful dream pop that grips the heartstrings and soul.
Utilizing an array of samplers, acoustic guitar, and vocal delays, N Nao, feels like a performance from a siren, luring you in ever so slowly, to show you an imagined, but attainable world of tranquility and grace.
The latest single “La plus belle chose,” is the first offering of N Nao’s second album which is due March next year. Ahead of her performance at M For Montreal on Nov. 16 at Le Ministère w/ Bibi Club, Valence, and Witch Prophet, we spoke with Naomie one afternoon about this version of her new single, lucid dreaming, and now being a part of the Mothland family.
PAN M 360: Hi Naomie. Congrats on the new release. What led to this bigger band version of “La plus belle chose”?
Naomie de Lorimier: When I released the EP, the acoustic version was meant to be the demo for the album version. So I wasn’t supposed to release the older guitar and voice version. But I felt like I had to because I don’t know. Sometimes you feel like you have to do something. I really like those home recordings live with, like few instruments. This new one is actually two years old, but I just released it.
PAN M 360: The latest version is gorgeously mixed and very calming and very trancey. I love the sample of the strings.
Naomie de Lorimier: Oh thank you. That string sample started with a conversation with me and Charles Marsolais-Ricard who is like half of N Nao. Often we jam and he has ideas of samples to mix with my lyrics. It’s very interesting to have that relationship with him.
PAN M 360: So he’s the co-founder of N Nao with you?
Naomie de Lorimier: Exact. He’s been there from the beginning. But I mean, it’s my songs, like it’s my songwriting, but Charles is the first person who ever heard a song from me, you know? So he’s really like important in the history of the
project.
PAN M 360: And for the creative process too?
Naomie de Lorimier: Yeah exactly. We always talk about music. We live together and we just like bounce and concepts and he’s like, art history master if I can say that, so from a conceptual aspect like he’s the core.
PAN M 360: You work a lot with found sounds in your music and use them as samples. Are these recordings you make yourself or do you pull from a sample library?
Naomie de Lorimier: I really play with the tapes. I have a Tascam 4-track and since the beginning of the project, I have recorded on tape. Just things from my daily life when I’m walking in the forest or when I’m at a park or when I’m skating. Tapes for me are super democratic. Like you can buy one for $1 at the Renaissance and I have like a few tape machines. So I use them as field recordings in our music. And like we have also a home studio so most of the album, maybe half of the recordings are homemade.
PAN M 360: So that is definitely part of your artistic process?
Naomie de Lorimier: Yes it’s very important for me. I like to collect things like flowers, rocks, and sounds. And you know, video, so it’s all part of the same archive. Like archival archeology? The field recordings are kind of more like a daily routine, maybe like a ritual of some sort. Because I’m mostly inspired by my dreams. And my research is really subconscious. So it’s a bit like, I’m doing it without knowing what will be the result. And then, like, when I re-listen to it, it kind of feels like it wasn’t me who made it. It’s a bit like with my video because I’m shooting with 8 mm. So, like, when I memorize it, two years later, I feel like it happened in a dream.
PAN M 360: You said you’re kind of inspired by your dreams. So do you like to write down your dreams after you wake up? Or do you kind of remember the feeling or the thoughts in them?
Naomie de Lorimier: It’s a really interesting question because you can become better at remembering your dreams. If you explain them to someone and if you talk about your dreams in your daily life, you will connect your conscious and your subconscious in a way. Like, right now we’re talking about dreams. So maybe in my dream, I will remember that conversation and it will be like a mirroring thing. So I like to tell them to my partner when I wake up. But also, when I used to be at Concordia, I tried to apply techniques. So like when you wake up, you don’t drink coffee, you go back to your dreams, and then you try to do a lucid dream.
PAN M 360: Yes lucid dreaming has always alluded me.
Naomie de Lorimier: I feel like that kind of training, it’s to become more porous, like the boundary between my conscious and subconscious realms. So when I’m unconscious, I feel like I can go back to that state. Like when I’m playing music and when I compose, I’m trying to go back to that state.
PAN M 360: So you lucid dream often?
Naomie de Lorimier: Well it’s hard to become a lucid dreamer ’cause it takes lots of training. But once I dreamt of like an installation, and I really felt like I got it, you know? And afterward, I remade it in real life, in my sculpture class. And that was the time that I was more close to it, but yeah, I’m not so good yet. Flying is super hard in the dream for example.
PAN M 360: Now that you’re part of the Mothland label, has that changed your artistic process in any way?
Naomie de Lorimier: My artistic practice hasn’t really changed, but maybe the only thing that has changed is that maybe I am more confident now. To have people that are really excited and trusting of what I’m doing. When I like, speak to them. I feel more surrounded. And having people around me makes me want to put more time into doing my art. So it’s been really nice.
PAN M 360: I’ve seen you live a few times and every time you wear the same dress and eventually spray water from my spray bottle onto yourself. It’s kind of like theatre in a way.
Naomie de Lorimier: Yes! I kind of like to apply my artistic background to my musical performance and like to blur the line between what is real and what is sort of dream-like. So the audience is kind of like ‘What did I just see?’ With the water, it’s like cleaning myself, feeling a bit like when you take a bath; it can be sensual in a way. And I am like a swimmer so when I do it on stage, I feel refreshed. And yeah, I just do it when I sing “Water and Dreams.” So I made that connection to that song.
N NAO plays on Nov. 16 at Le Ministère w/ Bibi Club, Valence, and Witch Prophet. TICKETS HERE
