You have seen her in a vast list of Quebec series for about thirty years (incredible, when you see her, it’s hard to believe it’s been so long). You may have forgotten that she also started her public career in music: the duo Ann Victor (with Martin Leon) with the album Ciné-Parc in 1998, and a solo album in 2005, Youpelaille! It is Geneviève Bilodeau, who resumed her studies in music (classical singing among other things) a few years ago, in order to refine an art that, it seems, she was missing.
The result is this beautifully crafted album, filled with many beautiful ideas and inspiration, titled Rendre Grâce (Express gratitude). We had already noticed in Ann Victor, as well as in Youpelaille!, this interest in a multitude of musical styles and forms. For finely crafted arrangements, too.
Rendre Grâce brings all of this to a higher level of subtlety, with intelligently woven texts, often in the form of engaged poetry. Geneviève Bilodeau uses them as vehicles to address vast, quite serious subjects, but without heaviness or pathos. A choice embraced and confirmed by the music and its arrangements, often lightened, with country, folk (a lot), bossa, jazz rhythms/colors, etc. Everywhere, a boldness supported by a framework (musical, poetic, and emotional) of good taste, with restraint and subtlety rather than excessive display. This allows issues like domestic violence, rough life, family, taboos, etc., to touch our minds and hearts effectively.
Wordplay endorsed by a suave musical sway hits the mark in “Tabous les tabous,” a song one could have heard from Henri Salvador’s mouth without surprise. Very pleasant. Or even La Muse, more serious, where you can feel a connection with the style of Arthur H or Bashung. La famille evokes, in country/cha-cha colours, the imperfections of these people so close to us, whom we sometimes love to vilify, but who remain indispensable. And then, Il a levé la voix (He raised his voice), which revisits what some victims of domestic violence often say to defend their aggressor, against a backdrop of cheerful rhythms and dramatic brass. The contrast is unsettling. And perhaps it is precisely this “stepping out of our comfort zone” that we need to not forget how much it still ruins too many lives.
It continues like this in a program of ten tracks, all born from the literary and musical pen of Geneviève Bilodeau. The artist uses a beautiful, simple voice, pleasantly centred on a light and luminous timbre. The quality has been sculpted by classical singing studies, of course, but no trace of operatic lyricism is perceived, which would have been counterintuitive.
A beautiful album of songs that covers a wide range but with a strong personality and a keen sense of freshness.
