She recently launched her autobiography, a story of telling [Her] life in technicolor. We see her on the web with De Pierre en fille as well as on the small screen thanks to the documentary series D.I.S.C.O. And now she comes back today with a new album. Are we witnessing the great return of Patsy Gallant? The question makes the singer laugh. “Honey, I will always come back! she promises.
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Hard to believe that Patsy Gallant will blow out 74 candles this summer. At the end of the line, the singer (and actress, let’s not forget it) is excited like a kid to discuss her new album, To Exist and Be Heard, on the market since yesterday. She laughs, she laughs, she even momentarily interrupts the interview when a sentence uttered inspires her to start a song.
“I have to record this before I forget it,” she exclaims, putting down her residential line while she sings a few notes in front of her cellphone microphone.
We hear him do it very well. And his voice, more powerful than ever, impresses.
” A donation “
A force of nature, this Patsy Gallant? Certainly. We can’t resist the temptation to ask him for his secret.
” No idea ! I stopped asking myself questions about my voice, about what makes it still there after all these years. I don’t smoke, I drink a glass of wine with dinner. But that’s all. I imagine it’s a gift, ”she drops, quite simply.
This voice is prominently displayed on each of the 18 tracks that make up To Exist and Be Heard, a first album of original songs in more than two decades. The genres, like his influences, are eclectic. And that, it allows to reveal new colors of his vocal range, even 45 years after having made the rain and the good weather on the dance floors with Sugar Daddy.
It must be said that all aspects of this disc have been carefully studied, weighed and fully thought out before it lands in the fans’ readers. Because Patsy Gallant has been jealously brooding over these songs for many years – twenty, in some cases. This album is “the album of [her] life”, as she reiterates several times during the interview.
In its own way
But what is it about these pieces that she has all signed? Everything, really. Of her former lovers (Tu me tues), of her sisters (Angels Are Crying), of her son (A Million Words, Overdose of Solitude), of men in general (Ain’t No Way to Treat a Woman)… Patsy Gallant casts a wide net here, all while borrowing flavors of pop, dance, disco, country and funk. And it’s all done his way. As she heard it.
“Producers wanted to take my songs and turn them into whatever they want. But these songs are like my babies. I can’t give them to anyone without even knowing if they’re going to be treated well. Come on, it just doesn’t happen, ”she says with all the verve that we know.
“So I took it all in. I thought it was about time. I did everything myself, I spent my pension fund there. But they had to come out, these songs. And it’s the most gift I’ve ever given myself, ”she adds.
