Canada’s environment and lifestyle has brought to music some incredible artists, headlining Leonard Cohen, of course. But this is not a post about nostalgia or a revival of the greatest of all time; this is the presentation of an up and coming duo-band you better pay close attention to. The Blooming is a chamber-pop duo who’s building their music over Elise Boulanger’s voice and Sean Patton’s instrumental skills, their sonority is somehow unique, between classical and dark-pop, it’s highly cinematic and ethereal due to Elise’s magical vocals.
To prove what we’re saying here’s their first single off of their upcoming and self-titled EP, Chrysalis. The song is the opening track –and what a way to start: the smooth and dreamy piano notes initiating it give us a sense of time-traveling and the link between past and present is noticed right when the drums begin. Boulanger’s vocals elevate the song and even though we try to resemble it with odd vocals like MS MR or CocoRosie, or even Sóley, this act detaches itself by mixing pop melodies with classical techniques.
The lyrics, in other hand, create a trip-hop almost psychedelic environment, taking advantage of bilingual the chorus dances between elegant French and mystique English “Si beau si belle, I want in your spell” and mysticism and dreamy fiction keeps growing as she sings “Lay down in the lilacs and see purple skies, Glass clouds bring you silence, There’s nothing to hide” or even more notorious when a visual description of rocks and minerals personified culminates with “I’ll show you how the insects sing”.
Two other songs will be part of the EP who’ll be released out 23rd this month and each one it’s different in its own way. Hollow Hands is a ballad with strike melodies and lyrics from a doomed love; Sun-Eyed is as mixed as Chrysalis but probably more unpredictable, with distinct orchestral arrangement and uplifting instrumentals by drums and bass, creating and epic track to end the record.
Now-a-days it’s not easy to innovate and create a brand new sonority and The Blooming are not up to that, in fact, but it’s undeniable that they are defying-genre and enlarging their boundaries exploring and mixing unlikely sonorities. It will be impossible not to follow this duo closely waiting for new work to come. And you should do the same.