Acadian artist Chloe Breault is getting real on her debut full-length release, Plage des morons. With a pop exterior and dreamy rock undertones, the release feels lightweight at its surface but gets heavier when looked at head-on.
Holding the same title as a private beach in Grand Anse, New Brunswick, the album — like the beach — contains a lot of Breault’s heart.
“It’s [named after] a private beach that my family calls Plage des Morons,” says Breault. “They call it that because we go there when we want to be alone, relax and not be disturbed by anything or anyone. For us, it’s that beach, but I think everyone has their own plage des morons — their own place they escape to.
“It is close to my heart. I’ve been going there since I was a kid.”
Breault began working on the album upon returning from a small tour in Europe during 2019. With freshly travel-stirred emotions and after taking time to distance herself from her life in Canada, she locked herself in her house and wrote the album in the span of a month.
“I had a lot of time to think and reflect on things that I really wanted to talk about. Some songs are deep and personal, but I really wanted to show that side of me so that I could maybe help other people dealing with the same struggles/situations as I did.”
Opening with the groove-heavy, previously released single “P’tits problèmes,” the album tells listeners straight away what they are getting into and what they can expect of the remainder of its 10 tracks. With reminders to not let the little things pile up and affect our mental health, the track preps listeners for the heavy blows that may await them further in.
Breault says she didn’t hold back in expressing herself on Plage des morons; she used it as a form of therapy in dealing with all that was troubling her leading up to its creation.
“I can say this album is 100% me and what I’ve gone through in the past years. I’ve opened up a lot in it. I talk about my childhood, good and bad relationships, travelling and missing home, the plage des morons, depression, letting go of things I can’t control and moving forward.
“Writing music is like a form of therapy for me.”
The music on the album feels like pop with an edge. With easily digestible and catchy beats, the primarily pop instrumentals dabble in retro, psychedelic and indie rock sounds throughout. The most alternative points of the album are evenly spaced at “Enfants,” which finds its rhythm in dreamy pop and indie rock sounds, and “Noir ou blanc,” which is guitar-heavy and features a fuzzed-out lead. The former feels something like the cure meets tame impala, and the latter, the Black Keys meets Iron & Wine.
Probably the most upbeat track on the release, “Nage,” takes a light and bouncy approach to discussing the difficulty of going against the grain or feeling like the world is stacked against you.
In contrast, the most stripped-back song on the album is “Pack It Up,” which is incidentally also the only English song on the release. In it, Breault lets listeners feel the true emotions behind the track. With soft guitar and violin instrumental as a backdrop, her vocals shine through and take centre stage. She softens the edges of her singing and lets fans hear her deep longing to return home after her tour in Europe.
Plage des morons comes three years following the release of Breault’s debut EP, Love. The album was recorded, produced and mixed by Benoit Morier at Dollhouse Studio in Moncton and features backing vocals, instrumentals and lyrical contributions by other artists, including Matt Boudreau, Lisa LeBlanc, Sumira Bothé, Emily Kennedy, Alexandre Désilets and Anick Brémault as well as producer Morier. The string arrangements on “Pack it up” are by Louis-Philipe Gingras, the mastering is by Yves Desrosiers and the artwork is by Stéphane Lévesque of Show C14.
Breault will be performing her second of two album release shows on Thursday, November 12 at the Caraquet Cultural Centre in Caraquet, New Brunswick.