Photo of Hélène Barbier by Antoine Wibaut

Today one of my favourite Montreal musicians, Hélène Barbier, releases her video for La Peur, the first single off of her sophomore album Regulus. I encountered Hélène's unique sound shortly after moving to Montreal in 2015. After seeing her play a show in the basement of the Durocher lofts with Moss Lime, I was captivated by her upbeat vocals and shimmering, angular guitar. To me, Hélène Barbier's music is emblematic of the Montreal sound I've come to know and love, and so I was thrilled to be able to dive into her world once again with La Peur.

The track is beautifully off-kilter and is just a taste of what's to come with Regulus. The album explores Hélène's world filled with prickly cacti, dimly-lit tunnels and barren country roads. She delivers a bilingual heartening space pop, equal parts unnerving and comforting.

Barbier enlists talented musicians for the album: Joe Chamandy, Thomas Molander (who we covered earlier this year), Samuel Gougoux, Diana Gerasimov, Ben Lalonde, et Olivier Demeaux. Regulus gets to the heart of the matter: a taunt to the predator of the given ecosystem.

La Peur — with a bleating groove and soliloquy chorus — innocently points out the freeness of letting go while unsolvable math problems work their way into the sediment of the bass and drum groove in the backbone of the song. The video, directed by Olivia Faye Lathuillière, explores the idea found at the heart of the lyrics of living by your principles at the risk of not being understood.

Hélène Barbier seeds melodies that ferment in her head, pairing hummable lines with alien tunes conjured in someone else's psyche across time and space. She embraces imbalance through juxtaposition with La Peur and creates simmering anticipation for Regulus. The album will be released on June 18 via Michel records (digital and CD) and Celluloid Lunch (vinyl).

Watch La Peur below

Hélène Barbier

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Malaika Astorga is the co-founder of Also Cool. She is a Mexican-Canadian visual artist, writer, and communications specialist currently based in Montreal.

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