[For an audience video from the official album presentation skip to Bonus 1].
La Licorne Captive (The CaptiveUnicorn) is an album that's sensual and darkly beautiful, with haunting melodies, and even more haunting poetic images. Its musical energy is quite strong, it sucks you in, takes you on a Dantean journey (or a sexy horror movie trip), throws you into catharsis, cures you with images of purity and love, and at the end leaves you with a poignant feeling which remains with you and is most beautiful.
The marriage between the layers of music, the lyrics, the instruments, the lead and the back vocals here seems ideal. It's hard to get over how perfectly Daniel Lavoie's voice pairs with violas da gamba (funny nobody thought of it sooner), and not just in timbre, but also in presence, how well it is complemented by Mary-Lou Gauthier's eerie soprano, how natural an electric guitar sounds next to the baroque instruments, how rich and diverse the musical texture is. This is an album that indeed gets better with each listen, and this is a good sign that it is perhaps destined to become a classic.
Although the musical component is undeniably domineering in this album, its texts are quite important and most intriguing. There are 8 stories, of which some are actually more of a tableau than a story (Ophélie, Bal des pendus, La licorne captive), others are so full of action each could easily be made into a movie, but all of them are very visual, almost "3D". The familiar titles are elegantly deceptive – nothing is what is expected. The album's composer Laurent Guardo (who also wrote the texts for all but two songs) turns familiar stories upside down or looks at them from an angle nobody else would think of. For example, La Chasse-Galerie (The Bewitched Canoe) unlike its traditional version, doesn't have a happy ending, and the story of the unicorn (La Licorne Captive) actually picks up where the traditional legend leaves off. And if you think you know this nice French traditional song V’la le bon vent – think again…
While the mysterious texts of La Licorne Captive leave plenty of room for interpretations, it seems to me that in its core it's an album about Light and Darkness. Light epitomized in Love is facing insurmountable obstacles - just like in real life, only with a fantastic landscape as a backdrop. And Darkness is assuming masks of Death, Evil, Destiny, even Satan himself.
[To read my attempt at interpreting the Good/Evil (Love/Death) dynamics of the album, skip to Bonus 2.]
So thankful for the bonus instrumental tracks on the mp3 version! When the songs are over, you long to linger in the world of La Licorne and so you can, recuperating along the way from all the intensity of the songs (the instrumental versions are much lighter).
A few words about the "listening technique" (I strongly believe in its importance): if you want to fully appreciate this music, find the time and space of isolation, place yourself horizontally, put the earphones on and sail in. Levitation is highly possible...
Bonus 1 (funny).
This is a speech given by Daniel Lavoie at the presentation of the album in Montréal's Espace ARTV Studio, on March 24, 2014. Beware, it gets spicy.
Bonus 2 (serious).
Here is how I see the Good/Evil (Love/Death) dynamics develop throughout the album:
Sirène (The Mermaid) –
crossing of a living person over to the land of Death.
Ophélie (to Rimbaud's poem) –
death viewed by the living, a view from outside.
Bal des pendus (Dance of the Hanged Men, Rimbaud again) –
death viewed by the dead, a view from inside. This is the deepest depth of Darkness.
Le noir et le blanc (Black and White) –
this song marks the watershed between Darkness and Light in this album. It also contains the pivotal phrase: "Là, où dans l'ombre la lumière pourra briller" ("Over there, where in the darkness a light could sparkle"), which to me is perhaps the raison d'être of this album.
La chasse-galerie (The Bewitched Canoe) –
another encounter with Evil in the name of love ; from this song on the protagonists will no longer actively seek death.
Icare (Icarus) –
introduces an islandfull of Greek mythology ; I see it as a multifigure painting of an orgy, with an almost never ending chain of sins and desires, until finally everything is atoned for by the innocent Icarus. The motif of children paying for the sins of their parents will resurface again in Le Sang.
La Licorne Captive (The Captive Unicorn) -
a dream of an impossible love and compassion, the album's pithiest (and perhaps, the most hauntingly beautiful) song, with the emotion the easiest to relate to, and therefore, most likely to make it to the radio waves if desired.
Le Sang (Blood) –
Evil is defeated by Love, with Destiny looming over. Here, towards the end of the album, Evil is no longer otherwordly, it lives in a human being, manifesting itself in anger, which has a perfectly human reason. By the way, this is perhaps this album’s most sensual song.
Le Souffle (Breath) –
a permission to resume breathing, a poignant instrumental postscript, with notes of longing and peace complementing each other.
This is a speech given by Daniel Lavoie at the presentation of the album in Montréal's Espace ARTV Studio, on March 24, 2014. Beware, it gets spicy.
Bonus 2 (serious).
Here is how I see the Good/Evil (Love/Death) dynamics develop throughout the album:
Sirène (The Mermaid) –
crossing of a living person over to the land of Death.
Ophélie (to Rimbaud's poem) –
death viewed by the living, a view from outside.
Bal des pendus (Dance of the Hanged Men, Rimbaud again) –
death viewed by the dead, a view from inside. This is the deepest depth of Darkness.
Le noir et le blanc (Black and White) –
this song marks the watershed between Darkness and Light in this album. It also contains the pivotal phrase: "Là, où dans l'ombre la lumière pourra briller" ("Over there, where in the darkness a light could sparkle"), which to me is perhaps the raison d'être of this album.
La chasse-galerie (The Bewitched Canoe) –
another encounter with Evil in the name of love ; from this song on the protagonists will no longer actively seek death.
Icare (Icarus) –
introduces an islandfull of Greek mythology ; I see it as a multifigure painting of an orgy, with an almost never ending chain of sins and desires, until finally everything is atoned for by the innocent Icarus. The motif of children paying for the sins of their parents will resurface again in Le Sang.
La Licorne Captive (The Captive Unicorn) -
a dream of an impossible love and compassion, the album's pithiest (and perhaps, the most hauntingly beautiful) song, with the emotion the easiest to relate to, and therefore, most likely to make it to the radio waves if desired.
Le Sang (Blood) –
Evil is defeated by Love, with Destiny looming over. Here, towards the end of the album, Evil is no longer otherwordly, it lives in a human being, manifesting itself in anger, which has a perfectly human reason. By the way, this is perhaps this album’s most sensual song.
Le Souffle (Breath) –
a permission to resume breathing, a poignant instrumental postscript, with notes of longing and peace complementing each other.
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