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Vlooper and Ogden from Alaclair together
Photo: Radio-Canada / Denis Wong
Your conspiracy friend After ironizing a certain fringe of the left, the Alaclair Ensemble caricatures the conspiratorial right with equal enthusiasm with two dizzying pieces about conspiracy theories, the first of which is entitled Your conspi Friend. Here, too, it is difficult to decipher the core of the group’s thinking.
Ogden : We’re all someone’s sneaky friend. It needs to be named. It’s funny how that sentence translates into something that tries to present a more marginal reading of the facts, because there are so many things in history that actually turned out to be conspiracies.
Weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist in Iraq, no one would say that’s not a conspiracy.
Vlooper : It’s also about restoring the legitimacy of the terms and re-appropriating them, because in the mainstream it is currently an insult to call someone a conspiracy theorist or woke person. But basically we say “your conspiracy friend” because we are your conspiracy friends.
Not a crazy guy The Alaclair Ensemble brings it back to the conspiracy theme with “Pas fou le mec,” the album’s final and probably most intriguing track, where Vlooper veers off the beaten path with a high-tempo rhythm reminiscent of 1990s house. Crystal Waters.
The almost nine-minute song features KNLO and Ogden in a kind of sketch by François Pérusse. They launch into a dizzying tirade in which, without stopping to breathe, they list the conspiracy theories that have characterized the last few years. And without us once again knowing what they really think about it.
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Vlooper : It’s a song idea we’ve had for a long time. It’s a kind of game, we’re very far from our usual spectrum. It’s very rare that I say to myself, “We had a brainwave,” but I have to say that I’m really proud of this song. I haven’t heard anywhere else that this thing doesn’t exist.
Stages of grief Lait paternal’s only instrumental piece, entitled “The Stages of Mourning”, says a lot about the state of mind in which the album was created. The entire album could have been called “The Stages of Grief,” says Ogden.
Personal grief, romantic separations, the grief for Maybe Watson, but also the grief for Karim Ouellet, a great friend of the Alaclair Ensemble, who died on January 17, 2022. The group is also reminiscent of the musician at the beginning of the album, Alaclair Fontaine, as well as on Forgot About Wats.
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Karim Ouellet and the Alaclair Ensemble grew up musically together in Quebec City.
Photo: Courtesy
Vlooper : Karim is a great friend. Claudius [Bégin] and Eman grew up with him throughout their professional careers. It was a great shock, a great loss. He occupied a very important place in the Alaclair family and the wider Quebec City family.
Ogden : I can’t remember who first invented the grief stage chart, but it’s a really interesting tool. It’s a 20-second read that you can really relate to. In grief there are liberating moments, but also depths. It’s good to remember that the feelings we can feel around life’s challenges can be very contradictory.
The Alaclair Ensemble will present their new album on stage at the Impérial Bell in Quebec on September 7th and then at Club Soda in Montreal on September 29th and 30th.