Band: Laurent Bourque
Album: Blue Hour
VÖ: 31.01.2020
Label/Vertrieb: CCS Rights Management/Believe
Website: laurentbourque.com/
Blue Hour invites you into an exploration of loss and new beginnings through pensive, chic piano-driven pop. Singer-songwriter Laurent Bourque presents 11 titles drenched in poetic expression anchored by shining piano melodies, sweeping synthesizers and blissful orchestral arrangements.
After touring his 2014 debut album, Pieces of Your Past, which won him Canada’s Stingray Rising Star Award, Laurent Bourque decided to put the brakes on and rethink his approach to songwriting: “I had a fully written second album that I was ready to take to the studio, but by the end of all that touring, I was sick of everything I was doing, and how I had been writing. I ended up ditching it all and making a goal to write 100 new songs.” During this creative ennui, Laurent was introduced to the idea of co-writing upon his relocation to Toronto in 2017. Collaboration would be the creative key to the material in Blue Hour. “When you write with other people, you can bounce things off each other and the best idea always wins,” he says. “Which always makes for better art.”
Laurent’s passion for making music began at age 12 when he formed his first band with his older brother drawing inspiration mainly from 90’s britpop. In his early 20’s, Laurent began gathering material for his debut album Pieces of Your Past, which was recorded live in a single day with producer Dave Draves (Kathleen Edwards, Julie Doiron). Fast forward to 2018 with his goal of 100 songs surpassed, Laurent teamed up with producer Dan Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Fortunate Ones) and longtime collaborator and drummer Jamie Kronick to record Blue Hour. Together, they took their time and created an album full of self-analytical characterizations rooted in swaying grooves and melancholic yet sanguine memories.
The ruminative title track examines communication in a relationship and “how difficult it is to maintain honesty and sincerity despite being madly in love.” And the wistful light pop of Thinking of You, featuring Jenn Grant on backing vocals, is “about looking back on a failed relationship. But not in a bitter or sad way; it’s a celebration.” Together with Dave Monks (Tokyo Police Club), the pair co-wrote Wait & See, a string-laden, momentous piano ballad that reflects on how anxiety and depression can affect a relationship. “This song grew out of the belief that someone you love, or perhaps barely know, has everything under control but, in reality, they don’t of course. We are all struggling together. It’s a song about hope.”
Blue Hour is twilight’s shining moment of natural, unwrinkled radiance. A mellow and vibrant hue that casts itself atop of landscapes, skylines and people going about their lives. As portrayed in Laurent’s words and melodies, Blue hour is an uninhibited reminder to stop and take in what’s beautiful as it happens.
