12/31/2023 0 Comments New kids on the block full discographyWe were feeling good in a really bad moment. “I was kind of in a bubble, with the dark side right behind,” he says. This juxtaposition manages to be hilarious and depressing at the same time, even if the album itself has no specific theme and Robert couldn’t find a fitting title for it. In it, two young children are seen in front of a bush, observing a pile of a dead person’s bones. One of the first things that jumps out with the self-titled third Jonathan Personne album is its artwork, designed by Robert himself. “With the previous album, I really thought about it for too long. But at the same time, the quick, fast and surprising approach is really fun, too,” he says. “It’s nice to have a perfect blueprint of what you want to make. Challenging as this may be, he invites opportunities to tackle each project differently than the last. The sidechain electronic effects, we tried to mix that with a Scott Walker-type song.”Īlso heavily inspired by other cinematic, orchestral-sounding ‘60s acts like the Carpenters and Lee Hazlewood, Robert admits that his forthcoming third album had a more “rock n’ roll approach” than he’d initially expected. With the first song, we were thinking about the song ‘Lady (Hear Me Tonight)’ by Modjo. “We were trying to do that, and at the same time, have a different, more modern approach about it. 40 layers of guitars, strings, stuff like that - but not recorded at the same time,” he continues. “We tried to emulate in some kind of way. Robert says this approach was intentional, while also trying to give it a more present-day flair. On others, such as “À présent” or “Après tout,” there are lush, heavily layered, acoustic guitar and string-driven ‘60s arrangements that evoke the Beach Boys, the Mamas and the Papas, Scott Walker, the Velvet Underground (whose influence can be heard on “Un homme sans visage” and “Gold Rush”) and Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. On some, you hear twangy, distorted guitars (“Deux yeux au fond d’une pièce noire”), or bluesy, Tom Petty/Neil Young-ish backdrops (“Le fou dans l’arbre”). I think it’s the logical succession of the second Jonathan Personne album.”Īcross eight tracks, we’re treated to just about the full range of Robert’s musical oeuvre. There were more and more eyes turned on the project since the second album, so I took the opportunity to make something bigger. We were just making something on the side. We recorded it ourselves with a Tascam machine. “The first album, we did that with no money at all. “At the beginning, I liked the lo-fi approach, but I didn’t love it - either with Corridor at the beginning, or even with the first two Jonathan Personne albums,” he says. What motivated this? The almighty dollar - or at least, the kind you can get through grants, which Robert received prior to the album’s creation, allowing him to make the album in a proper studio. It’s also an album that one of Robert’s press releases describes as being “more polished and less lo-fi” than previous releases. In other words, don’t expect his sophomore LP to be his answer to Taylor Swift’s Folklore. ![]() We were still at the height of the pandemic back then, so I knew I could wait a little.”ĭespite the circumstances behind its creation, Robert stresses that this is not a pandemic album. To release two albums in the same year would’ve been for nothing. “We had four albums at the same time, and I released my last album at the end of 2020,” Robert continues. Meanwhile, the mixing process with local veteran producer Emmanuel Éthier - followed by the birth of Robert’s child in between - took longer to get through. Making them with only his vocals and an acoustic guitar while surrounded by nature and no outside noise, he’d then spend about two or three weeks in the studio.Ĭomposing the songs was done quickly with just his vocals and an acoustic guitar, while three days were spent afterward finishing the songs with other musicians before spending several weeks in the studio. Robert spent two months writing the songs at a cottage he and two friends had bought a couple years back near the Laurentians, where he’d also spent most of the pandemic’s onset. I let someone do the next music video for me. “I used to do everything: being all over the place, doing the music videos, waiting last minute for stuff. “I didn’t want to get too overwhelmed before the release, so I just took an easy summer,” he says. 26, having released his previous albums on the now-defunct Michel Records. His self-titled third album - sixth in total including Corridor’s albums - was released by Bonsound on Aug. Not only is he the frontman of local indie rockers/Sub Pop signees Corridor, Robert is also known by the moniker Jonathan Personne as a solo artist. His stage name might translate to “no one,” but don’t get it twisted: Jonathan Robert is definitely someone.
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