Edition #36
American Tour; From 2016 to 2024

A Celebration of Death and Rebirth 

It’s with a high degree of positive energy that I rejoined the members of my band The Long Shadows as we all gathered at our church studio HQ to start digging into the spirit that will ultimately define our upcoming American tour with the British band Temples.

Everyone is happy and excited, and even Moose seems to be in a good place, which is great, as this sort of unexpected get-together marks the first occasion that the 6 of us are assembled in the same room since I informed him I needed some time to reevaluate his participation in my ongoing projects. It’s never easy to tell someone you have supported for so long that for the best of everyone involved, he might have to step back. I’m usually slow in taking such a definitive kind of decision—family and loyalty being part of my core values. It’s also the reason why I’m prompt to give a loved one another chance, and another, and another… But I also believe in the utmost necessity of moving forward, both personally and artistically. You know me, I’m transparent on pretty much every front, and the time is now for me.

I’m usually the last one to jump in the rehearsal cycle. My preparation begins with a period of isolation, reflective intimacy, and musing introspection. That’s where the nature of a new project, be it a tour, an album, a film, or else, resides, always. That’s where I can find enough of the specific layers and shades I’m looking for to eventually bring them to the rest of the band so we can outline new collective aspects of the invisible we want to dwell on together, explore what can’t be touched, what can’t be seen or even truly defined. I learned years ago that such sparks cannot be captured nor owned, as when you try, and God knows I did, you choke its unique essence and drain its brightness. You end up with nothing but your own bleached-out ambition.
That’s actually the reason why I’d rather immerse myself in what I can feel from deep inside. And since I decided to do so, I realized that somehow, on every occasion I let go in its midst, whatever it might be or originate from, I see my creative perspective be reshaped and my so-called need to understand what I can’t comprehend be transformed by the sensations that emerge from my individual or collective discoveries. That’s what matters to me, the rest is elusive at best, if only self-digested performance and prefabricated entertainment—and I execrate both almost equally. You may be able to generate light out of neon, but you can’t commune life out of spiritual sterility. It’s plastic to me, non-degradable self-serving uselessness. That’s why conception is all about abandonment and letting go for me and why it manifests itself through live improvisations and sparks being cultivated. In other words, I’m not looking for any public repetition, as flamboyant a demonstration I could end up mastering the gimmick it involves, not even for innovative rejuvenation, but I’m seeking inspirational transfiguration, as painful as it is to renounce my profound sense of self each and every opportunity I have to pick up an instrument, may I be in the privacy of my studio or in some public set-up.

I guess, in retrospect, this is the obvious realization that led me to reevaluate the relevance of going in the direction I was engaged in with my former band Your Favorite Enemies. At some point, I had to decide if I wanted to keep denying what I knew was real or to entirely break the reasoning mechanic that kept me in what had almost completely lost its purpose. It’s far from being an easy decision, especially when you have tasted the intoxicating illusions of success, even if only a little… For me, though, it’s because I didn’t feel anything after drinking that cup of make-believe that it became inevitable. There’s no cure to eradicate reality. Once you know, you know, and what follows is up to you. It is either a slow miserable death or a drastic one followed by a potential rebirth. My “death” happened at our last concert in New York and my rebirth would eventually take place in Tangier some moments later.

Going on tour in America brought those souvenirs back with a fierce current of emotional images alongside them. It was in March of 2016, almost 10 years ago, and the memory is still vivid. Many fans and loved ones chartered buses from Montreal for the occasion. Nobody knew it would be the band’s last concert, only me. We ended up inviting everyone for a glass of wine we had chosen for the occasion on a beautifully empty Broadway. It was joyful. While it was far from being the Madison Square Garden, it was us, it was real, it was clear, and I was serenely at peace, lucid. I wasn’t leaving or quitting, I was migrating, on my own terms, unaware that it would take me almost 3 years to find the courage to release my album “Windows in the Sky” in Canada and 2 additional years to make it available internationally, proof that a rebirth doesn’t imply being immediately fully formed. It takes steps; a few for some, a whole lot for others like me. Hopefully, it’s not about how long it takes, it’s about how firmly every one of those steps is anchored every single day of our new life, even when we stumble, as any singular path is essentially defined by those falls, errors, failures, and other catastrophes. We all need to learn to stand up on our own.
Heading to America involves so many more elements than what can be perceived at first sight. It’s a resilient life jubilee, to be honest, a sort of inner celebration from which enfranchisement and liberation are designed to be shared with others, to be communed with anyone willing to magnify freedom in its own measure of shape and sounds. As for me, any personal rebirth results in community exaltation, regardless of how we feel or where we are in our journey. Again, life creates life!!!

I can’t wait to cheer and exalt that colorful brightness with you, my dear friends and loved ones.

Much love,
Your friend and brother,
Alex

PS: For more information and tickets to my upcoming US tour, click here.

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