A “pop-retro-intello” album for Evelyne Brochu[ Agence QMI , March 15, 2019 ]Evelyne Bro

A “pop-retro-intello” album for Evelyne Brochu

[Agence QMI , March 15, 2019]

Evelyne Brochu compares the album project she is working on with Félix Dyotte to the musical collaboration between Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

“I don’t promise it’s that good (laughs), but it’s like being in Felix’s musical universe, tailored to what he sees in me.”

For several months now, the actress has been making us think about this future album, on which we will discover the full extent of her talent as a singer, but the fantasy is about to become concrete: Evelyne Brochu recorded the songs last summer, and we could hear some of them “before the leaves are in the trees,“ she said in an interview with the QMI Agency. The full result will be available by the end of 2019.

The title of the album has been identified, but the artist prefers to keep it secret for the moment. As for the style emanating from it, Evelyne Brochu defines it, in an uncertain tone, as “francophone-pop-retro-intello”, “a little ‘vintage’, but not completely”.

“It’s a mixture of the periods, the 60s, 70s and 80s,” she said. “We can recognize Félix Dyotte, but it’s like his world has been taken somewhere else. I’m very excited, it’s very exciting!”

Friend of the CEGEP

Félix Dyotte, singer-songwriter whose latest album, “Excès de politesses”, was released last fall, and a former member of the Chinatown band, and Evelyne Brochu have known each other since the CEGEP period.

“He’s always been a friend of mine,” said Evelyne. “I used to be a vocalist in one of his ‘bands’, Les Rats Repus. I hated the name of the band; when people asked me what we were called, I replied that it wasn’t important! (laughs)”

While a student at the Conservatoire d’art dramatique, the young woman violated the rules of her school - which prohibited students from working in artistic businesses outside its walls - by sneaking gigs with Les Rats Repus at the Inspecteur Epinle bar on Saint-Hubert Street in Montreal.

Since then, the buddies have never stopped pushing the point together, and when a friend gave them the idea of recording equipment professionally in tandem, they took the concept literally.

“I was in Budapest filming, and Felix sent me a message on Facebook asking me if we were doing it. And I said yes! He wrote me songs. It’s amazing how, sometimes, things that have always existed can suddenly blossom.”

Singing and music have always been part of Evelyne Brochu’s life, for whom chorales and singing lessons have been part of her daily life since childhood. In addition to her collaborations with Félix Dyotte, some of which have ignited social networks, the actress also lent her voice to Stefie Shock’s “12 belles dans la peau”, a compilation in which he reinterpreted Serge Gainsbourg’s repertoire.

“Music is a direct link to the soul,” she observed. “It is the only art for which you don’t need to interrupt your life to enjoy it. Unlike cinema and television, where you have to sit down to watch, or reading, where you have to stop to immerse yourself in the story. The music blends with the memories and belongs to us completely.”

During her pregnancy

Pregnant at the time of the production of her album - baby Laurier is now five months old-, Evelyne Brochu is convinced that her current condition has affected her delivery of the different songs in the studio.

“It certainly changed me as a human being, then it changes the whole human instrument. I was laden with this love, and when I sing to my child, now I see in his eyes that he already has a very powerful relationship with singing and music.”

Evelyne Brochu is in the cast of François Delisle’s film Ca$h Nexu$, which will be screened on March 22. She will shoot the third season of Trop starting May 1st and will also be part of Monia Chokri’s new feature film, La femme de mon frère, which is expected to be released this year.

She also hopes that the French series in which she played the role of a spy, Thanksgiving, recently presented on Arte (and currently available on the web), will be aired in Quebec in the near future.

“I would really like it to be seen here, it’s really good,” she said. “I am making the following appeal: I don’t know who does the ordering work on Club illico and on the specialty channels, but it would be nice if we could see it at home!”