Klô Pelgag: Album "Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs" Out April 17th

Two years after being crowned “Female Artist of the Year” at the Gala de l’ADISQ, and after winning four Félix awards for her previous album “L’étoile thoracique,” Klô Pelgag is back with a life-saving new album, “Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs". The album artwork is a portrait by French painter Florence Obrecht. Today, Klô Pelgag also shares a short documentary explaining the genesis of this new record, as well as the main inspiration behind its creation—the village of Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, and the alternate version of it that Klô imagined as a child. This documentary directed by Baz was shot last December.

Klô Pelgag is a renowned singer-songwriter who shares her quirky, authentic world with the public. After putting out an independent EP, she released her debut LP, L’alchimie des monstres in 2013 and won several awards, including Best New Artist at the Gala de l’ADISQ in 2014, the Prix Barbara of the French Culture Minister, the Grand Prix de la Francophonie of l’Académie Charles Cros, the Prix Miroir Célébration de la langue française at Festival d’été de Québec, as well as the Prix Rapsat-Lelièvre. She toured several francophone countries to present the songs of that album, giving more than 200 concerts in Quebec, Belgium, France and Switzerland. Her sophomore effort, 2016’s L’étoile thoracique was a massive success in Quebec. She won four Félix awards at the Gala de l’ADISQ in 2017: Alternative Album of the Year, Album of the Year — Critics’ Choice, Singer-Songwriter of the Year, and Record Producer of the Year. The album made the long list of the Polaris Music Prize in 2017, and was nominated at the Juno Awards the following year. Additionally, she won the prestigious Prix Félix-Leclerc, as well as the Prix de la chanson SOCAN for her song Ferrofluides-fleurs. She also presented her first concert in Japan. In 2018, she was crowned Female Artist of the Year at the Gala de l’ADISQ.

Klô: “Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs is a place that exists geographically, but it’s also a place that exists in my mind. When I was a child, we’d pass by the sign announcing the village while travelling from Sainte-Anne-des-Monts to Rivière-Ouelle. Every time I saw it, I averted my eyes and shivered in horror. That name terrified me. I imagined a dying village with sad houses, empty streets and creaky chairs still rocking with the memory of deserters.

And now, after many years of overwork, I found myself exactly in that place. In the middle of all my anxieties, not knowing anymore who I was, taking hits and hating myself more than anyone else. A thick fog settled in my head, with black, opaque skies. I now lived on this island that I built or imagined on my own. I was lying in the dark on the bed of the rainbow (couchée dans le noir sur le lit de l’arc-en-ciel).

Then in August 2019, while I was starting to get my bearings back, I decided to visit Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, the village. The initial thing I discovered was quite meaningful: it’s actually an island. I took the ferry and arrived in an idyllic place. A village with dirt roads and no more than 35 inhabitants, whose souls haven’t been perverted or spoiled by mankind. A village with no grocery store or gas station. A superb place. With trees and flowers, a lighthouse, colourful wooden houses, and fish whose flesh was so pure it went beyond my definition of the colour ‘pink.’ Slowly, I went through the village I imagined as a child, and I hope to never go back there. Now, I’ll go to the real Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs, where I’ll eat fish that smells like the river and whose colour bemuses me.”

Music Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dChx-O9YbIc&feature=youtu.be