Crash

Vincent Roberge, the Montreal singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist known as Les Louanges, was just about to introduce his 2018 debut album, the Polaris Prize-shortlisted La nuit est une panthère, to European audiences when the world ground to a halt. “I’d been on tour nonstop for two years and when I got back, I self-isolated at a cottage,” Roberge tells Apple Music. “Instead of dwelling on it, I threw myself into my work and converted the cottage into a studio.” Produced with his collaborator Félix Petit, aka FELP, Crash builds on the languid groove established on Les Louanges’ previous LP with a broader sound palette. It’s also a chronicle of his success so far, tempered by a difficult breakup. “It’s an overview of everything that’s happened in my life since my debut album. It’s almost a documentary. Each song is a little accident, a high point. It’s a journal in which I explain who I am: Vincent is no longer the young 22-year-old guy from the first album.” Here, Roberge guides us through his ultra-personal second album, track by track.
“Prologue” “It’s one of the first beats I created—I think I built the rhythm on my laptop on a train in Switzerland—and I combined it with one of the last lyrics I wrote. It’s a prologue in the theatrical sense of the term, as though the three witches in Macbeth have just warned me of what lies ahead. In fact, nearly the entire album is summed up right here.”
“Chaussée” “It starts with a door slamming because I felt like doing something in the style of Pulp Fiction, beginning at the end to explain how everything came about. The album has two themes: a breakup and a chronicle of life on tour. This one clearly belongs in the first category. I wanted to do a tune that was more pop, more raw and direct. I was listening to Sign o’ the Times a lot at the time and there’s a little nod to ‘Strange Relationship,’ except I identify with the female character, not Prince!”
“Bolero” “Want to know how Vincent got his heart broken? Let me explain. I talk about a few times when I’ve lost control and some strange life choices, but I do it without glorifying excesses. It talks of that great emptiness you sometimes feel. The drum sample is from a Cuban bolero that I doctored.”
“Encore” “It’s in that same ‘Bolero’ spirit: It talks about passion, excess, it’s carnal—but it’s a relationship that’s doomed to fail. It’s my favorite track because I gave myself more freedom in terms of form: There isn’t really a refrain and I allowed myself to add some experimental touches. I think I could have called it ‘La complainte du fuckboy en Alaska’ [‘The lament of the fuckboy in Alaska’], especially at the end, when the narrator is really sad to say he’s leaving, to the sound of a little melody played on acoustic guitar.”
“Qu’est-ce que tu m’fais” “It’s the most danceable song I’ve ever done, and I realized it had almost the same rhythm as the ‘Macarena’! It doesn’t require much explanation, but to sum it up: On December 31, 2019, I met someone, and it knocked me to the ground. It talks of seductive passion, but the kind you can easily fall prey to, and that’s reflected in the instrumentation—it’s danceable, but it sometimes takes some pretty dark turns.”
“Cruze” “I’m a bit of a music geek and I like to hide references and allusions in my tunes, but you don’t always notice them. This one was inspired by ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ by Queens of the Stone Age. If you know the song, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not quite sure how to explain the subject without offending anyone. It talks about wild times as a teenager; you could say it’s the dark version of ‘Tercel.’ There’s also a few somewhat obscure musical influences, like ‘If I Could Hold Your Soul’ by Cities Aviv.”
“Gaston” “I’m a big fan of Miron. When I think about what defines a man, I think of [Quebec poet] Gaston Miron, Richard Desjardins, and Marc Séguin: Incredibly sensitive guys who aren’t afraid of being vulnerable. This excerpt touches me because you can hear Miron fumbling for the words, hesitating, getting it wrong. It’s a little interlude between two dark tracks. The music is simple: We recorded our keyboardist Gabriel Godbout-Castonguay without his knowledge while he was improvising on the piano.”
“Facile” “It’s not very complicated: It’s the story of a guy who’s just been dumped and he’s feeling miserable. I wanted to represent the pain, the sense of injustice, that implacable side of it all, but I didn’t want it to turn into a sort of fuck-you to the ex. It’s very honest. The opening lines literally describe my state of mind when I was writing it: I hadn’t eaten in two days, and I was smoking one cigarette after another.”
“Chérie” “People have told me my music is sexy, and for this one, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, you want sexy? Just you wait!’ It’s very full-on, but I didn’t want to be too blunt, even if my metaphors leave little room for doubt. I refer to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)’ right before the bridge. It’s that moment of doubt, where I ask myself if our love is mutual, like when Stevie sings ‘I’m wondering if your love’s still strong.’”
“Pigeons” “It evokes the distance between two people, an idea that recurs throughout the album. It’s the first lyric I wrote when I came back from Europe. You might think it’s another story about an intimate relationship, but it actually talks about my friends. I’ve chosen this way of life, and even though it’s difficult, it means I have to leave people behind. Solitude, the fact that I’m not there, especially for old friends, is part of the price you have to pay to be an artist.”
“Mono” “When I got back from Europe, I spent my two weeks self-isolating at a cottage with my keyboardist Gabriel. We’d work every day following the same routine and it was during those sessions that ‘Mono’ came about. It already had that rather dark side to it that was created by Gabriel, who’s a truly excellent keyboard player. For the lyrics, it was different: Initially, it was a song about love in the time of COVID, but I finished the lyrics a year later. It turned into something else: a song about second chances.”
“Déziel” “The title is an allusion to the name of the street where my parents live. It’s just a little appetizer, an interlude built around guitar samples. I thought it sounded nice, so I included it, perhaps to make a tune with it later on or in the hope that someone samples it and turns it into something else.”
“Chaperon” “It’s the darkest one on the album, that’s for sure, and I didn’t really know how I’d go about broaching such a sensitive subject. I think it’s important to convey messages, but never at the expense of art. The reason I named it ‘Chaperon’ [‘Riding Hood’] is in reference to the Brothers Grimm fairytale, which is quite literally a warning intended to protect young girls. I couldn’t put myself in the girl’s shoes, so I found a way of telling a tragic story without taking someone else’s pain as my own. Musically, it’s the equivalent of a guy who’s trying hard not to cry.”
“Crash” (feat. Corneille) “I’d been thinking about collaborating with Corneille for ages and everyone around me said I should contact him, but I kept putting it off. One day, as I was coming out of Planet Studios, I saw this classy guy getting out of an Audi and he called to me: ‘Les Louanges! I’m a huge fan.’ It was him! I obviously had no choice then, so I asked him, and he accepted. He’s such a pro; he can sing anything, and it’ll sound profound! I really enjoyed myself on this track, where I’m practically rapping. It talks about me and how I’ve got back on my feet after the many crashes referred to in the other songs.”
“Dernière” “It’s a breakup song, but in my opinion, it’s the most beautiful and the simplest declaration of love I’ve ever written. On the album, there’s a sort of progression, and even though I haven’t undergone a great transformation, at least I’ve learned, like Socrates, that really, I know nothing. The musicians first heard it in the studio; we recorded it there and then, live, in just two takes, in a completely organic way.”