2023-08-24 17:59:33
99 Nights. It’s the title track from the new album, which comes out Friday. You could say: 99 nights later. A mark of duration. That’s the time it took Charlotte Cardin. Not so much to record this second album as to go through a particularly intense, confused, paradoxical, even suffocating period.
The necessary time for an identity quest. Who am I ? What have I become? Who is this planetary megastar Charlotte Cardin whose image Spotify spreads across Times Square? What happened to the tall young girl who made it to The Voice finals ten years ago? Ten years ! Vertigo. An altitude to take your breath away. How not to suffocate at the top?
“Sick of your suffocation / You pushed me over the edge / I’m holding on to the ledge”, she sings from the outset. From Puppy, she wants to be (or become again) this little being who, the head out the window, get the fresh air in the open. The open air! “Because tonight’s my last night gasping for air. “Once at Next to You, the twelfth and last song of the album, collaboration Charlotte Cardin-Patrick Watson, it is still a question of filling the lungs, to continue:” Now I have to leave, just so I can breathe […] I’m just looking for a better me. »
In the offices of Cult Nation, in Mile End, Charlotte’s words resonate in the natural echo of the vast place, in her head and in the songs. “These are 99 metaphorical nights, which correspond to a summer where I lived a lot of things, on a personal level and on a professional level. A period when I tried to understand what was happening to me. It’s no coincidence that the first and last songs on the album express the need for deep breathing. The whole album is driven by the desire to free oneself. Of the perception we have of ourselves, of excessive ambitions, of our own contradictions, of everything that prevents us from filling our lungs. »
The singer is numerous
The observation is there, through the album and through life: it’s not easy to find a way to a deep truth when you are… multiple. In Looping, she evokes the “Voices / Voices / Voices / In my head”. In Confetti, in a light tone, it does not lack seriousness. Almost in two columns, she confronts the Charlottes, affirms one thing and its opposite: “Always been loud in a quiet way / I always feel alone in a crowded place / I always wanna stay, wanna go […] I know everyone, I got no friends. The gap between the blazing fire of stratospheric stardom and more down-to-earth normality isn’t narrowing, and managing the confusion ends up looking like managing the risk… madness.
Beautiful symbol, in this, that this song with the title speaking very strongly from the start of what happens in a brain that tilts: Jim Carrey. “It’s like my dreams are turning on me / I’m my worst enemy / This may be the end of me / I got so many personalities / Jim Carrey, will you marry me? We always wonder if, in private, this elastic facies is also mobile: how does one survive overheating when one is a Jim Carrey? Or a Charlotte Cardin?
Woman on the Moon
The interested party willingly comments on the subject, she has obviously dug it a lot: “Jim Carrey has given many conferences and interviews in which he talks about the place of the ego and how our ego holds us back and prevents us from take the opportunities to grow that pass. What he says about the disconnect between the real person and the person you want to be in the eyes of others is very eloquent. At an extreme level of celebrity, where we are asked our opinion on everything, where people follow us, the question inevitably arises: in what way am I able to answer better than anyone else? »
The conversation turns to the side of Andy Kaufman, the actor who got lost in his incarnations until he died. He was the subject of REM’s song Man on the Moon, and then the character played by Jim Carrey in the film of the same title. It all hangs together, fools recognize each other. “It’s amazing, huh! Everything is connected. What becomes dangerous are the expectations that we create: we must remain aware of what we want and what that implies. Charlotte, woman on the moon.
imminent take-off
As she prepares to leave for another world tour, Charlotte Cardin is less feverish than cautious. “I know from when fatigue will arrive. I learned to preserve myself. She learned to sing in a “less polite, less smooth” way, allowed herself a lot of “first takes where sometimes [sa] broken voice”, and it is this choice of freedom in the very constraining format of modern pop that reassures her for the future. “When I did Next to You with Patrick Watson, I really felt like I had left my ego at the entrance and was surrendering to a world of possibilities. That I was well, that I was in a place with very open windows, with a very healthy current of air. Can’t wait for the sequel? ” I am already there. »
99 Nights
Charlotte Cardin, Cult Nation. Available from August 25. Performing on August 30 and 31 at the Cogeco amphitheater in Trois-Rivières and on a world tour until 2024.
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