Le vert et le bleu

Description

Mathieu des Longchamps was born in Montréal, to a folk singer mother and a flamenco guitarist and harpist father. A childhood in La Guaira, Panama, in a stilt house, between the green of the jungle and the blue of the ocean, already gave the future man an “outside the box” background and sketches the portrait of this eternally dreaming, traveling man of rare authenticity. At 19, he spent weeks on the road in Uruguay, where living on nothing and singing in the streets to earn his keep became his daily life. This anecdote is important to understand the genesis of Le vert et le bleu and its visual variations. Very acoustic, this 11-track album reveals elegant, refined folk, where plenty of room is left to his own guitars of course, but also to real instruments. Recorded at the legendary Ferber studios in Paris, six fellow travelers join him: Alexandre Millet on keyboards and piano, Mike Clinton on bass, Romain Joutard and Matthieu Zirn on drums, Adriano Tenorio on percussion, and Mathyas VJ on cello. The decision is made to name this opus Le vert et le bleu as an obvious reference to what Mathieu needs to feel happy. This time, the artist chooses French as his only language. The years have passed since Panama and since Uruguay. Thus the album Le vert et le bleu reveals a set of thoughts and deep reflections on time, the dreams we have and give up on, others and ourselves... Between depth and lightness, nostalgia or tears, softness or carefreeness, the travel photos are at times contrasting but always invite departure and wide open spaces.