N Nao – L’eau et les rêves

N NAO is part of this indie movement inclined to song forms coated with “experimental processes”, to quote a fragment of her rhetoric on her Bandcamp page. In fact, these processes are known to anyone who listens to the said experimental music: field recordings transformed by different filters, quotations of “classical” orchestral pop or even baroque, canon effects, minimalist cycles in the American style, use of analog synthesizers, layers of electronically generated frequencies, medium or slow tempos, the whole surrounded by a vaporous voice and perfectly consonant songs, perfectly tonal, perfectly in accordance with the idea of harmony that the common listener has. Thus, this fluid flows “on the shores of dreams, romance and healing”, the work of N Nao (aka Naomie de Lorimier) aims to reveal the signs, symbols and thoughts arising from her unconscious, all with assumed eco-feminist values. As for the literary dimension of this art, it is still embryonic. We will see, as time goes by, if the text imposes itself as much as the human voice and the beautiful sound environment in which the singer evolves. This dreamy album with folk, ambient or even prog inclinations is a happy discovery in the Quebec landscape, still too much out of step with this more exploratory area of songwriting forms – one thinks in particular of Grouper, Jenny Hval and others Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Naomie de Lorimier (vocals, synthesizers and acoustic guitars) plays with Charles Marsolais-Ricard (guitars and sampling), Samuel Gougoux (drums, drum machine and percussion), Lysandre Ménard (piano, synthesizers, vocals), Étienne Dupré (electric bass and synth bass). To be followed closely on the banks of the unconscious.