L'Étoile Thoracique

Description

Canadian singer Klô Pelgag fulfilled a childhood dream by surrounding herself with a 20-musician orchestra for her first album, "L'étoile thoracique", released in 2016. Between eccentricity and melancholy, the Gaspé native returns, more self-assured than ever. With this album, "Étoile thoracique", fragmented yet more homogeneous than the first, the former Révélations Radio-Canada in song offers a bouquet of 13 songs, each containing its own, even phantasmagorical, universe. "Ferrofluides-fleurs", a trembling little ballad with a light rhythm, unveiled the efflorescence of this accomplished and more intimate second album. In love in "Incendie", soaring in "Les instants d'équilibre", the singer-pianist seems to carry spring with her all year long. Yet, as on the first album, harsh words sometimes clash with the notes. Do we grasp their full meaning? Perhaps not on the first listen, as the new songs owe so much to the sumptuous arrangements of the string orchestra (conducted by Nicolas Ellis, currently assistant conductor in residence at the OSQ) and the brass sextet, signed by the singer's brother, Mathieu Pelletier-Gagnon. The lyrics evoke images that are sometimes limpid, often impressionistic, as in "Le sexe des étoiles", which borders on six minutes (with such fine instrumentation, we wouldn't have balked at 10!). The music offers broad panoramas, like the very cinematic and almost unsettling finale of "Au bonheur d'Edelweiss" or the stripped-down "J'arrive en retard". Klô Pelgag serves us 10 uninterrupted minutes in the epilogue with a luminous beam entitled "Apparition de la Sainte Étoile thoracique".