Category: Québécois

The French-speaking natives or inhabitants of the Canadian province of Quebec

Chilly Gonzales Announces New Holiday Album Featuring Feist and Jarvis Cocker

Chilly Gonzales

A very chilly christmas includes covers of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and David Berman’s “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan”

Canadian pianist Chilly Gonzales has announced a new holiday album. A very chilly christmas arrives November 13 (via Gentle Threat) and features Feist and Jarvis Cocker. The album includes covers of Mariah Carey’s classic “All I Want for Christmas Is You” and David Berman’s “Snow Is Falling in Manhattan,” as well as standards like “Silent Night” and “Auld Lang Syne” (which Gonzales reworked as “Auld Lang Mynor”). “The Banister Bough” is the album’s sole original song. Find the full tracklist and watch a trailer below.

“Christmas is a time of very mixed intense emotion for me, and the existing canon often sounds like a forced smile,” Chilly Gonzales said in a press release. “Christmas is a typical time for superficial happiness, but also a time for reflection and mourning the sad events throughout the year, and to play the songs in a minor key makes Christmas more authentic and realistic.”

 

 

Source: Chilly Gonzales Announces New Holiday Album Featuring Feist and Jarvis Cocker | Pitchfork

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Music History in the here and now

In the latest of her Global Music Match dispatches, The Magpies’ Holly Brandon meets up with Canadian trio VISHTEN, whose music thrillingly combines a rich cultural heritage with contemporary rock

MULTI-INSTRUMENTALISTS Emmanuelle and Pastelle LeBlanc and Pascal Miousse — Vishten — have been dazzling audiences with a fierylend of traditional French songs and original instrumentation for over a decade.

The name Vishten is a nod to the eponymous song whose lyrics are a percussive amalgam of French, Mi’kmaq and English, a musical realisation of the band’s fascinating Acadian heritage.

For millennia Acadia, a region in north-eastern North America, was occupied by the Mi’kmaq people. It was colonised by the French in 1604, hence the strong Francophone influence in the songs, while subsequent settlers from Ireland and Scotland left their Celtic stamp on the music

In the 1750s, following the British conquest, the Acadians’ refusal to swear allegiance to the British crown resulted in a deportation that saw the expulsion of almost 12,000 Acadians to the British-American colonies further south. When they returned, they added their newfound US influences to the Acadian musical melting pot. Continue reading “Music History in the here and now” →

Coeur De Pirate “Ne m’appelle pas”

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This “spooky” lo-fi version of “Ne m’appelle pas” was shot by Matt Charland at the Quebec home of Béatrice Martin, aka Coeur De Pirate.

This acoustic piano version is a soulful take on the Montréalaise singer’s 2019 single, an upbeat dance tune with an irresistible hook. – Frenchly

Bravo! Trudeau announces Canada is banning assault-style weapons

Move comes after murder of 22 people in worst mass shooting in Canada’s history

Canada has banned assault-style weapons following the murder of 22 people in the worst mass shooting in the country’s history, Justin Trudeau announced on Friday. Continue reading “Bravo! Trudeau announces Canada is banning assault-style weapons” →

Trudeau: Canada will pay recent college grads

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the press about the latest coronavirus updates in Canada. Trudeau has announced a new fund called the Canada Emergency Student Benefit aimed at helping recent college graduates in Canada get into the workforce amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Eligible students will receive $1,250 a month for four months, and students with disabilities will receive $1,750 a month. In his briefing yesterday, Trudeau acknowledged how many university students were not eligible for benefits under the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, and said that ‘right now, you might be worried about how to make ends meet. You probably can’t work your normal job, and that might be a big problem for rent or groceries… This benefit is designed for you.’