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Francophone producer finds his own voice in La Rivière

Loig Morin performing tunes from album live on summer dates
Loig Morin
North Vancouver electro-pop music producer Loig Morin has been nominated for Francophone Artist of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards.

Loig Morin, Music Lab Festival, June 2, North Vancouver. For more info visit loigmorin.com.

This time around it’s personal for Loig Morin.

After the North Vancouver-based, French electro-pop songwriter and music producer put other projects on pause and looked inwards, the lyrics flowed out of him like a river. Morin has spent the last six years producing other artists and now he’s found his own voice again.

He has produced and composed music for fashion weeks in Vancouver, Japan and Australia, among other local and international projects but never wrote for himself, until this album, described as melancholy and poetic electro pop.

La Rivière, which means The River in French, is an intimate offering from Morin, as he takes a deep dive into his personal life and the world around him. The sudden death of a close friend and Morin’s wife’s sickness were turned into poetry on his sophomore album.

“It was a time in my life when I wanted to be very honest with myself,” says Morin. “You know, at one point of your life you don’t care about the appearance but you want to be more authentic.”

Penning those personal lyrics was cathartic in a way for Morin, while he grappled with his emotions. The title track, “La Rivière,” is about his wife’s battle with depression. During that long journey, Morin wondered at times if it was his fault.

“It’s something that you don’t understand at the beginning … and it takes a long time to where you can say it’s a depression,” explains Morin. “It was the beginning of the album and I said, OK, I need to be very honest with me and with what I want to say.”

There are also messages of love, nostalgia and the rapid passage of time fused in the different tracks on the album. After his good friend in France passed away tragically and suddenly, something musically clicked in Morin.

For La Rivière, Morin experimented with more progressive music, alongside the pop stuff. 

“I said, I can do whatever I want and I did it,” says Morin. “It’s very encouraging for me for the next (album) because the next one will definitely be more crazy … because I know the people are able to receive my message.”

Morin teams up with 19-year-old singer Maude Lacquement from Montreal for the duets on La Rivière.

“I fell in love with her voice,” says Morin of when he first heard Lacquement sing.

The two are featured in the video for “La Rivière,” which was shot in nature on the North Shore and depicts a serene setting. The camera follows a meandering river running alongside a snow-blanketed river bank.

Despite his French roots, Morin has found a loyal audience since arriving in Vancouver eight years ago.

“English people are interested, too – it’s not only French people,” he says. “Sure, I have the French community here and Radio-Canada CBC, they are a good support for me, but we will play at the Khatsahlano festival in July. I start to have an audience in English, too.”

Morin was underprepared for how La Rivière, which was released on Radio-Canada this past Valentine’s Day, would be received by the listening public. They loved it, judging by his Spotify numbers jumping from 10 listeners to 4,000 in two days. Morin has also been nominated as the Francophone Artist of the Year 2018 for Western Canada.

“It’s cool,” Morin says, of the achievement.

He hopes the nomination helps put him on the map as an artist, “because we want to play everywhere, in Canada especially,” says Morin, who will be embarking on a West Coast tour this summer with dates in Vancouver, Victoria, Portland and Seattle.

“We don’t have a lot of dates because it was a surprise for us when the audience reacted like that,” explains Morin.

He thought he would just go hibernate back in the studio and produce other artists’ albums this summer, but singing is putting him in the spotlight instead.

La Rivière gave Morin a chance to collaborate again with several heavy-hitting professionals in the industry, including Luc Charreton and Jean-Se Le Doujet.

Jim Warren, a sound engineer for bands Arcade Fire and Radiohead, also makes a significant contribution to the album. Friends for 25 years, Warren previewed every song on Morin’s album and offered feedback.

Chris Potter, who worked with Sarah McLachlan, did the mastering on La Rivière, which Morin says added extra quality to whole package.

Looking back on his first album, Lonsdale, Morin says he’s grown and the lyrics to his life have changed.

“Lonsdale was the last page of my previous life,” he says.

Morin is now living his best life.

“I’m more me,” he says.