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.

In the upcoming weeks, Les Louanges will cross the american border for the first time, to play SXSW. In April, he will fly over to France to headline is first european tour. He will play six shows in France, including one for INOUïS, as part of Printemps de Bourges. Les Louanges will be back home in May to continue touring Quebec. He will headline his biggest show yet at Club Soda on June 18th for the Francos de Montréal. See dates below or at leslouanges.com.

Tour dates
11/03/19 Austin, TX // Bungalow - SXSW (Bonsound showcase)
14/03/19 Austin, TX // Mohawk - SXSW (M pour Montreal showcase)
15/03/19 Austin, TX // Swan Dive - SXSW (Pop Montreal showcase)
22/03/19 Québec, QC // Impérial Bell (en première partie d'Ariane Moffatt)
13/04/19 Belvezet, FR // L’Arbousier
15/04/19 Paris, FR // La Boule Noire
16/04/19 Bordeaux, FR // TBA
18/04/19 Bourges, FR // 22 Ouest - Printemps de Bourges
20/04/19 Arbois, FR // MJC D’Arbois
21/04/19 Besançon, FR // L’Antonnoir
10/05/19 Sherbrooke, QC // La Petite Boîte Noire
16/05/19 Bois-des-Filion, QC // Bière au menu
18/05/19 Gatineau, QC // Minotaure
13/06/19 Drummondville, QC // Maison des arts Desjardins, Studio EGR
18/06/19 Montréal, QC // Club Soda - Francos de Montréal
29/06/19 Petite-Vallée, QC // Chapiteau de la Vieille Forge - Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée
11/07/19 L'Assomption, QC // L'Ange Cornu
13/07/19 Lac-Mégantic, QC //Chapelle du Rang 1
18/07/19 Baie-Saint-Paul, QC // Scène Desjardins - Le Festif!
11/08/19 Trois-Pistoles, QC // L'Oeil de la tempête
25/10/19 Alma, QC // Café du Clocher
26/10/19 Dolbeau-Mistassini, QC // Vox Populi
22/11/19 Shawinigan, QC // Salon Wabasso

Biography

Les Louanges consists of Vincent Roberge... and that is it! He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays a little bit of everything in the recording studio and who surrounds himself with other musicians on stage. Les Louanges launched his first EP, Le Mercure, on his Bandcamp page in 2016. He added an extra track, Encéphaline (which won a SOCAN Songwriting Prize), then formally released the EP the following year. Finalist at the 2017 Francouvertes and the 2015 Festival International de la Chanson de Granby, the Montreal-based Lévis-native made a splash thanks to his EP’s jazzy, slacker-rock vibe and the unique timbre of his voice. For his debut full-length La nuit est une panthère, the young producer embarks on a new path by exploring more chillwave, R&B and hip-hop sounds.