Les Soeurs Boulay

Their three career albums, Le Poids des Confettis 9 (platinum disc), 4488 de l'Amour (gold disc) and La mort des étoiles, as well as the EP Lendemains, have taken them to concert halls and festivals over four hundred times. It all started at the Francouvertes, Montreal's up-and-coming talent contest, which they unexpectedly won one festive evening in 2012. Since then, we've seen them at ADISQ, where they've won five Félix awards in the categories Revelation of the Year and Album of the Year - Folk in 2013, Group of the Year in 2014, Album of the Year - Folk in 2016 and Group of the Year in 2017. They have also won the GAMIQ awards, been finalists for the Félix-Leclerc and SOCAN awards, been on the long list for the Polaris prize, and won the Entrées en scène Loto-Québec and Révélations Radio-Canada awards. In the meantime, they've traveled, questioned themselves, thought about leaving the business for good, then embraced it again, in this endless dance that perhaps allows them to always remain free above all else. Mélanie gave birth to a second child and a visual arts project, as well as studying osteopathy in her spare time; Stéphanie produced a solo album and a handful of literary works, as well as becoming an amateur farmer and beekeeper. Both have spoken out, sometimes in a sovereign way, sometimes in an organized way (Festival en Chanson de Petite-Vallée, Journées de la Culture, Francouvertes, Festival Zéro Déchet, etc.). They've written, they've raved, they've drawn, they've reviewed, they've gardened. Year after year, they become more and more accomplished, plural and assertive women. So, after two years of pandemic, a complete change of professional team, yet another existential crisis, and with much, much joy and haste, Les soeurs Boulay finally reunited to create their fourth full-length, Échapper à la nuit. Thumbing their noses at the dark ages that tried to make us believe that art wasn't essential, Les soeurs Boulay choose to create anyway, and too bad if it's for nothing. They also reinvent themselves, with pop sounds, sometimes synthetic, more modern and polished, more troubled and dense, sometimes dancing, sometimes light as feathers, polished six-handed with director Connor Seidel. Lyrics are always at the forefront, voices intermingle, themes seek to emerge from the bleak and desperate, the cynical and blunt. The sun rises after a long dark night, we dance on the ruins of illusions and lost paradises, but we dance all the same. Escaping the night means embracing sadness and doubt, but leaving them behind to move forward. Échapper à la nuit - The second act is our return to our roots, coming full circle, acknowledging our path and our beginnings. It's just the two of us on stage, as we were on day one, with our candid little instruments and our big instinctive drums, our little jokes and our big emotions. It's our two voices and our lyrics that want to take over again. It's the freedom we want to give back to ourselves, the freedom that only a duo formula allows, and the connection we want to continue to have - and maybe even more so - with our audience.