Allan C'est Vrai ou Pas

Self-taught guitarist that played a few years on the local Quebec scene in various line-ups, sharing stages with Octobre, Maneige, etc. Jacques Blais became one of Quebec's best guitarists (along with Frank Marino) and his reputation grew to the point of playing prestigious shows without having recorded an album (yet). Late 74, despite having his own and upon hearing Contraction's second album La Bourse Ou La vie, he asked the group's bassist Yves Laferrière to produce his first album, and soon enough most of the band was backing Blais, not only in the studio, but in the next few months' following its release in 1975. Contraction's influence is all over the music. Nonetheless, all writing credits are given to Blais, who plays acoustic and electric guitar in addition to singing. Roughly half the cuts are instrumental, and it is these that shine in particular through their gorgeous melodies and arrangements, rather than outright virtuosity…

Mêlant blues, rock, chanson et jazz, voici le nouveau voyage de CharlElie Couture Si CharlElie Couture promène à travers le monde un blues poétique rempli d’humour et de lucidité depuis trente ans, alors on n’a pas vu le temps passer ! Peintre, écrivain et chanteur inclassable, CharlElie Couture est un artiste dans la pleine acceptation du terme. Il fait partie des « icônes » d’une certaine chanson-rock littéraire traversant les décennies avec l’élégance incontestable des grands hommes discrets. Il faut l’avoir vu sur scène pour comprendre le magnétisme qui émane de ses concerts. Harmonies Jazz, Blues ironiques, Rock steady ou Folk non-conformiste, depuis le mythique « Poèmes Rock » CharlElie Couture raconte des histoires, farcies de double-sens et de métaphores électriques.

Rester vrai is a 1994 album recorded by French singer Florent Pagny. It was his third studio album and was released in March 1994. It achieved moderate success in France where it remained charted for 39 weeks in the top 50, including a peak at #19 for two weeks. For the first time in Pagny's career, lyrics were written by other artists such as Jean-Jacques Goldman who participated under the pseudonym of Sam Brewski. This album provided two singles : the unsuccessful "Est-ce que tu me suis ?" (#45 in France) and the hit single "Si tu veux m'essayer" (#7 in France), which was recorded as "If You Want to Know Me" in 2009 by the Belgian singer Dana Winner for the album "Between Now and Tomorrow" with English lyrics by Michael Leahy. The music video for the track "Rester vrai" was directed by Dani Jacobs and shot in London and features Pagny trapped in a glass box in a large empty space as if he is a museum exhibit or part of an experiment.

Composed in feverish bouts interrupted by long periods of inaction, Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch was brought to completion in 1896. The 46 songs are settings of poems in German by Paul Heyse, after Italian folk songs – miniatures with a duration of less than 2 minutes in most cases. Heyse’s collection numbered more than 350 poems, but Wolf ignored the ballads and laments, and concentrated almost exclusively on the rispetti. These are short love poems which chart, against a Tuscan landscape, the everyday jealousies, flirtations, joys and despairs of men and women in love. Heyse’s translations often intensify the simple Italian of the original poems, and in their turn, Wolf’s settings represent a further heightening of emotion. Miniatures they may be, but many of the songs strike unforgettably at the heart.