After more than five years without releasing new music and three and a half years of silence, Philippe Brach is making an unexpected comeback with Les gens qu’on aime, the fourth album which may or may not be the last.
When the singer-songwriter announced a few weeks ago the imminent arrival of a new album, several people believed in a hoax of which only he has the secret.
“Yeah I know, a lot of people thought I was trolling again. But it would have been really cheap to do a quick shot like that and not come back! Especially since I’ve been receiving messages for a while. They ask me what I’m doing, if I’m fine. »
The answer is yes, Philippe Brach is fine. We met him earlier this week in a restaurant on rue Beaubien, smiling and obviously in good shape. Happy to talk too, but the rare, free and elusive bird that he is has set his conditions: the interviews will be few, and he is happy because so far, “it’s been well balanced”.
“I’m going to try to come back and not feel like screeching my camp after a week. »
Originally from Falardeau in Lac-Saint-Jean, Philippe Brach always knew that he would not spend his life in Montreal. He is now settled in the Hautes-Laurentides, “deep in the woods”, where he works for local community organizations. We haven’t seen him for the past few years, but he “never really stopped”, continued to write and compose, directing and directing for other projects. He also remained involved in the organization of the La Noce festival in Saguenay.
Philippe Brach was convinced that he was not going to release anything “before a crunch from the end”. Until last November when, on a whim, he made the decision to record songs written over the past two years. After setting up a pretty tight schedule, he called his record company, and the process began.
“The first people to know are the people who did the cover art and the press photos. The musicians were notified three weeks in advance. We went into the studio on January 9, February 9 everything was done, and it comes out in March. »
Isn’t there something ironic about working in a hurry, after going so many years without getting anything out? ” It feels good ! It’s: oh shit, we’re on a precipice. And I like that, creating in front of a precipice. I find it really, really fun. »
Fans will not be destabilized by this new album co-produced once again with his friend Gabriel Desjardins, which contains good layers of orchestration, but applied in a more punctual way, in which we find his flowing phrasing, many breaks in tone and his particular humor, but which breathes more.
He was also content on the lyrical side, with often very short texts. The title track has only one line: “The people we love are all going to die”. The best he has ever written, he believes.
“I’ve had it before, the vibe of saying a lot of business to say a business. There I saw that I was packing, so I cut three quarters of the tunes to go straight to the point. »
Still immersed in creation, the singer-songwriter has difficulty seeing the common thread of his album. We tell him that we had the impression that he is more turned towards others, that he looks at the world trying to find something positive in it. He nods.
The result is less I and more other-oriented – the diptych You want to kill yourself, right? and J’ai de l’air is particularly touching. This is partly, he believes, because he has never seen so many humans since he left the city.
“When I was in Montreal, I was locked in my apartment all day long. I made three albums without seeing anyone. This one is really people oriented, I guess that’s because I must have met quite a few of them! »
In any case, he has the impression that it is more pleasant to listen to than his previous one, The Silence of the Herds. After three albums created in five years, People we love marks the beginning of a new period for him. What do we wish for him?
Philippe Brach will spend the summer in the woods and on the lakes, then will go on tour again from the fall for a year and a half. And after ? Who knows.
“If it’s another album, it’ll be another tour. Or it could be that I become a ghost again. But that’s in two years, and two months ago I wasn’t even in the studio yet. It’s hard to predict. »
