Looking in, reaching out Sala’s Surface is a soulful, atmospheric collection of chansons exploring growth, motion and loss By: Ben Waldman Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, Apr. 13, 2023 Last Modified: 9:23 PM CDT Thursday, Apr. 13, 2023 Updates

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Ariane Jean is blessed with two ears obsessively attuned to the covert melodies and rhythms of the everyday: the rapid percussion in strangers’ footsteps on the sidewalk and the orchestra of car horns honking their way down Rue Taché, making itself heard loud and clear through the café window behind her.

Jean, 42, has spent the majority of her career as a vocalist as a part of something bigger than herself. Surrounded by music, she often daydreams, keeping her most grandiose ideas to herself.

“I’m a fairly quiet person,” she says, sipping an orange smoothie and wearing her favourite T-shirt, from a dive bar in Kentucky she sang at in 2013. “I’m not always comfortable in the spotlight, but I’ve chosen to be an artist.

“I guess I am a bit of a juxtaposition.”

A founding member of the Juno-winning vocal powerhouse Chic Gamine and the ethereal a cappella group Madrigaia, Jean has long been a hired gun in the Manitoba music world, brought in to add harmonies for artists such as JP Hoe, Raine Hamilton and Daniel Lavoie.

But after more than two decades as a member of ensembles, in 2020 Jean allowed herself a long-anticipated and much-deserved indulgence: dubbing herself Sala, a nod to her mother’s maiden name, she released for the first time an album of solo work.

Today, she released her gorgeous second album, Surface, a soulful, atmospheric sextet of jazzy alt-pop chansons exploring the pains and joys of growth, motion and loss.

Her honest and imaginative lyrics, composed in French, tell a story of an artist’s, and human’s, endless journey of self-discovery.

It’s a fitting sequel to Sala’s four-song, self-titled EP, which revealed an open secret: Jean is not only a natural singer, but a gifted songwriter, equipped with a lyrical voice that is light and fluttery, but undeniably emotive, writing from imagery to evoke a sensory response.

“I think there’s an aura of whimsy around me,” she says. “I tend to think outside the box.”

On that EP, released in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, Jean does her best work when echoing her ecological surroundings. In one breath, she vocalizes the percussive patterns of a frantic woodpecker and in the next, she whistles in the rich tones of a celebratory songbird on the standout track Comme L’oiseau.

The balladic Oublions l’automne is a song of acceptance, and moving forward. She sings of the burdens we carry, and the bridges we need to cross in order to become more whole.

One burden Jean faces as an artist is the all-too-common inclination toward self-deprecation, despite evidence to the contrary. “I don’t play any instrument very well, except for the tambourine,” she says.

Her collaborators are quick to disagree. Daniel Roy, a percussionist and longtime collaborator who was blown away by a performance by a teenage Jean at a talent show at Université de St. Boniface in the 1990s, says Jean’s voice is an instrument all its own.

“Ariane’s voice is versatile, and there’s a purity to her vocal tone.”–Daniel Roy

“Ariane’s voice is versatile, and there’s a purity to her vocal tone,” Roy says. “She can get stratospheric, with an almost operatic edge, using it in a playful way. Even when she’s writing, she can instantly hear five-part harmonies. Rhythms come to her naturally, and the best way she can communicate them is through singing.”

Another burden Jean identifies within herself is a feeling of being an imposter in her own world, trying to forge a new identity while not forgetting her roots.

It’s that isolation and self-discovery that guide Surface, produced and written over the course of three years, streaming on all platforms and available for purchase as of today, April 14.

Jean says she wanted to make each song sound complete. She does much more than that.

On the title track, written with former Chic Gamine bandmate Annick Brémault, Sala excavates her own memories. She is a vessel, struggling to fill the void that lies ahead. Nos Secrets melds electronic beats and classic-sounding strings, exploring past and future. “Comment percer ces secrets, ces échos? Ces rumeurs sourdes du passé… Et si ces ombres pouvaient tout avouer? Sauraient-elles vraiment me délivrer?” How do we escape the circumstances of our own existence?

Jean’s connection to her childhood drives her musical practice. Her early influences include Crosby, Stills and Nash, Laura Nyro, and the songs of Gilbert Bécaud. Her mother introduced her to a wide range of French music, and her father, Gérard, is the author of Histoire D’Antan, a song that has become close to an anthem in French-speaking Manitoba.

Je ne veux pas grandir was inspired by her son, not Peter Pan. “At some point, we were telling him he was getting older, that he has to be more responsible,” she says. “And he was saying ‘I don’t want to grow up.’ I was like, OK, I get that. Aging is a hard thing.’”

Confronting fears at your own pace is one of the unifying messages of the album, which Jean will perform in full at Centre cultural franco-manitobain on Saturday, April 15 in a high-concept show the artist is hesitant to spoil. She’ll be joined on stage by Roy, bassist Marie-Josée Dandeneau and keyboardist Zack Antel.

At last, Sala will stand alone in the spotlight, moving on into an uncertain but exciting future.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com

Ben Waldman
Reporter

Ben Waldman is a National Newspaper Award-nominated reporter on the Arts & Life desk at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Ben completed three internships with the Free Press while earning his degree at Ryerson University’s (now Toronto Metropolitan University’s) School of Journalism before joining the newsroom full-time in 2019. Read more about Ben.

Every piece of reporting Ben produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.