Bonsound

2018 ended on a great note for Les Louanges (real name Vincent Roberge). Just months after its release, his first album La nuit est une panthère appeared on several year-end lists. Today, with spring right around the corner, Les Louanges shares a brand new video for the song Westcott, 5th single off his album released on September 21st 2018 via Bonsound.

On Westcott, Les Louanges recalls putting on steel-toed boots to put cash in the piggy bank. It’s the end of blissful innocence for Vincent while he figures out how to pay the bills. The video by Philippe Chagnon shows him working on a construction site and then going home to work on a mysterious wooden box. He successfully illustrates that dual life Les Louanges led while juggling his day job and working on his musical project (aka the mysterious wooden box). It’s a pretty common situation : feeling misplaced and out of sorts (...) It’s about forging your own path and finding your place in the world, explains Chagnon.

Earlier this winter, Les Louanges shared a music video for the title song of the album, La nuit est une panthère. Directed by Pablo Escobar Tuduri (Martine aimait les films), the video shot in one-take depicted the well-known, but taboo reality of online sexuality. It’s something that exists, so why not explore it?, the artist explains, in reference to the protagonists’ relationship in the video and today’s consumption of digital sexuality.

La nuit est une panthère is the album that Les Louanges always wanted to make. Both down-to-earth and poetic, the 14 songs reflect his immense talent as an artist. He sings in french and belongs to that new generation of Quebec artists whose main artistic approach is to deconstruct musical genres and styles. He leads the audience through a variety of different tones while staying true to his roots in his lyrics.

The album is a perfect blend of pop and jazz (Jupiter), with strong influences of R&B (Westcott), hip hop (Tercel) and chillwave. I've listened to hip hop all my life and I studied jazz, so it was very organic to me, he explains. Inspired by music's greatests as well as his forward thinking contemporaries, he names Frank Ocean, Hiatus Kaiyote, BadBadNotGood and Robert Glasper among his biggest influences.

The album La nuit est une panthère is available now on all digital platforms.

Biography

Les Louanges consists of Vincent Roberge .. and that’s it! Writer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, Les Louanges’ sound is truly tailor-made : a jazz-infused, undeniably groovy pop sound, boasting poetic yet relatable texts. A music born in the streets of Lévis, first heard at the Francouvertes and today saluted as one of the most important new music out of Québec in recent years. If Les Louanges is part of the new wave of artists who skillfully blend genres, most importantly, he’s managed to create his own. After releasing his first EP, Le Mercure, an indie rock gem, Les Louanges came back strong with his first album, La nuit est une panthère, released September 2018, via Bonsound. A few months later, his first full-length appeared on countless end of year round-ups and the critic’s pick quickly turned into the people’s darling. Sold-out shows started racking up as well as invitations abroad and pretty soon, Les Louanges packed his bags and shipped out. First stop was the Trans musicales of Rennes, alongside Aloïse Sauvage, then a trip to Austin, Texas for SXSW and back to France, for a headlining series of shows, namely at the Printemps de Bourges, selected as part of the INOUïS. Back in Montreal in the spring of 2019, Les Louanges was awarded the Rapsat-Lelièvre prize, in partnership with Belgium, thereby asserting the growing buzz overseas. Locally, Radio-Canada then named Les Louanges Breakthrough Artist of the year. Soon after, the Francos de Montréal kicked-off the summer season. In the span of a few days, Les Louanges was granted the prestigious Félix-Leclerc award and played his biggest show ever in front of a very sold-out Club Soda. As he's finishing up his upcoming EP Expansion Pack, due out September 2019, Les Louanges welcomed a nomination on the Polaris Music Prize Short List, for his very first album.