Five tunes for the Christmas holiday season
In collaboration with Nicolas Ouellet
Creating a festive atmosphere at the cabin is easy. Light a few candles, put a log on the woodstove, and get out your Bluetooth speaker. To get into the holiday spirit, what's playing besides Michael Bublé? We asked music columnist Nicolas Ouellet, host of ICI Première and ICI Musique, to share five original Québec songs, to give us a break from the refrains we know by heart. Nicolas has provided the perfect soundtrack to accompany an aperitif beside the fireplace, near that special stocking hung with great care.
Parc national du Mont-Mégantic
What a pleasure it is to imagine all you readers, during this period of festivities, of introspection, of love, and of long drives on Quebec's snow white roads, devouring musical offerings that are less familiar, but bursting with all those emotions that make the holiday season so special.
As you'll have gathered by now, my mission is to provide you with musical proposals that can become sweet refuges for (almost) all the situations that this festive season has in store for you.
And if you're entertaining guests at the cabin, this soundtrack will leave no one indifferent.
For repeat listening as you pack
Vanille
Let's get right to the heart of the action, with a song that evokes Christmas head-on, without being one of those classics that the grumpiest of us can't stand. Created in its original version in 1964 by the illustrious Beach Boys, and popularized in Québec at the same time in the language of Molière by Renée Martel, As-tu vu le Père Noël? is a resolutely surf-rock song that inspires smiles and mischief.
Covered here by Vanille - one of Québec’s rising indie rock stars - this song guarantees two things: to get the party started and to show your cousin, who "knows all about music,” that you’re really in the groove.
In the car, on the way to the cabin
Velours Velours
Speaking of that cousin - who probably lives in Montréal - make sure you surprise her, between sips of eggnog, with the acuity of your knowledge of the emerging music scene, by dropping the name Velours Velours.
Raphaël Pépin-Tanguay, a young prodigy who appeared on the radar of local music fans before he was even 20, possesses an impeccable sense of melody and a narrative approach that transforms his songs into pageants you can spend hours listening to without ever feeling fed up.
You'll be amazed at how many listens you'll give to this song, Yeah, during the journey from your home to the venue of the next celebration - a journey which, I hope, will last several hours.
Relaxing by the wood stove
Naomi
There's no need to stick your head in the sand (or in the snow, I should say): the holiday season can be a pretty tough period for those who flirt with some form of loneliness.
And this is where Naomi comes in.
With Un coin sombre pour danser, her album with the most exquisite title of 2024 (sorry, Brat), Naomi offers a perfect safety valve for all those buried or inhibited liberating desires, validating all emotional outbursts and creating a safe space to live out those contradictory feelings that only this time of year can stir up.
If the perfect bliss that everyone seems to be exuding during your celebrations seems foreign to you, fear not: take refuge in a dark corner of your venue, put on your headphones, turn up the volume, close your eyes, imagine yourself on a dance floor, and allow yourself to blubber to your heart’s content: Pleurer sur le dancefloor.
Kicking off the evening's festivities
Zalam Kao
Some of you will probably, at one time or another, end up in a cabin with family and/or friends; if you're still reading my article at this point, it's perhaps because you're that person who's going to reach for the Bluetooth speaker or auxiliary wire. At the very moment you make the courageous decision to set the musical mood, you'll be looking for the perfect tune to surprise your guests and get the party rocking and rolling.
Allow me to humbly suggest the music of Zalam Kao.
A beast with five heads, Zalam Kao was born in this very place where you're hanging out: a cabin. Tchobis, Ogou Rayé, MoMo, Edaï Larobina, and Lucas Melo, each with their own individual careers, came together to test the truth of Confucius' famous dictum: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
One cabin stay later, Zalam Kao's only song to date was born: Tout pour toi, a song set in the hollow of that duality between celebration and melancholy, joy and nostalgia, which comes resolutely from the heart and knows how to touch your heart with every listen.
During a solo walk in the forest
Lova
One last tune, which evokes states that are very precious to me when I reflect on this holiday period: introspection and contemplation. Of course, we'll eat, drink, and be merry, unwrapping gifts in the company of those we love and who love us too.
But I also hope that, for precisely three minutes and thirty-one seconds, we'll have our noses in the fresh air, our heads turned a little bit upside down, our eyes looking skyward - and, even better, plunged into the stars if it's nightfall. The aim? To look back on all that life has thrown at us, both beautiful and not-so-glorious, during the year that is drawing to a close, and, above all, to appreciate the triumphs and challenges that have made us grow.
With Saturne (and the whole of her album Minuit moins une, to be honest), Lova unfurls the perfect soundtrack for these beautiful and vast reflections.
It was a pleasure to share a fragment of my passion for these home-grown artists, who have earned the right to mark the most precious moments of our lives.
Happiness, health, love, and friendship, and a thousand and one adventures in the cabin and outdoors… that's what I wish for all of you.
Looking forward to your visit at Nouveaux sons sur ICI Musique, if you feel like checking in!
About Nicolas Ouellet
Even before becoming the host and producer of the daily Nouveaux Sons show on ICI Musique and the weekly Jusqu'au bout broadcast on ICI Première - two programs entirely devoted to new music - Nicolas Ouellet has always been first and foremost a music fan. A huge fan. Of all music.
And that's pretty much all you need to know about him.
(That… and the fact that he has a boundless love of cats.)