When looking at the beautiful but chaotic works of Québécois painter Jean-Paul Riopelle, lush strings and vintage synthesizers would not be a typical sonic interpretation; but for Mathieu David Gagnon, Riopelle’s paintings inspire a calm harmony evident on his newest record, 8 Tableaux. A musician often inspired by nature, Gagnon has been inspired this time around by abstract depictions of nature in Quebec.
Flore Laurentienne is the musical project of French-Canadian composer Mathieu David Gagnon. Coming from a rigorous background of classical music studies, Gagnon began with classical guitar, then studied music notation at the Université de Montréal, before finally spending time in France to study fugue and counterpoint. Infusing his classical training with his love for 70’s prog rock, the music of Flore Laurentienne features vintage synthesizers complimented by a string quartet. It’s as baroque as it is new-age ambient.
On their first US headline tour this year, Flore Laurentienne performed at Public Records in Brooklyn. The band was intimately positioned in the center of the room with many audience members sitting at the band’s feet. The music that flowed from Gagnon’s Wurlitzer keyboard, (an instrument prominently featured in prog-rock, notably on The Dark Side of the Moon) his string quartet, and an accompanying percussionist on marimba sounded like it was written for that exact room. The acoustics of their performance were unlike any other show I had been to. No frequency too harsh, the band members were heard equally. The string quartet’s timbre was particularly beautiful, as their raw, unamplified sound complimented the processed delays and effects that brought their classical compositions to this century. The undivided attention of the crowd would only be broken when Gagnon would cheerfully joke between songs about how he was happy he and his band were able to make it across the border with all their gear. Flore Laurentienne is bringing a new life to modern classical music that few have done tastefully since minimalist composer Steve Reich and his contemporaries.
Before their stop in New York, I was able to interview Gagnon about their new album, 8 Tableaux, his creative process, and his musical background.
Photo courtesy of Flore Laurentienne // Credit to Ph Redmond
Tell me about your new album, 8 Tableaux, I know it’s based off of paintings by a Québécois painter, but I’m curious about your inspiration behind why his art specifically inspired you to create a piece of music.
It’s funny because my work is always inspired by the nature here in Québec. For the first time I was inspired by someone who was inspired by that same nature, so it’s like a look on a work that’s inspired by this same nature, but it’s not music, it’s paintings. When I discovered these paintings, I really fell in love with the abstract aspect of his work. I’m really sensitive to the colors, so it moved my inspiration to something a bit more abstract. I used to use a lot of classical form in music, but on this record, I incorporate a lot of randomness and a lot of texture. The compositions on the record are recorded only with synthesizers, but it works with acoustic instruments too, because of the nature of the writing. It’s all written for the synth, but it can be played on whatever the instrument is.
I’ve noticed your past records have a string quartet accompaniment, and sometimes additional instrumentation, but on this record you chose to only include synths. When you were composing 8 Tableaux, did you approach it with eventually performing it with other players in mind, or were you thinking that you just wanted to make a synth record?
Both I think. I really wanted to do a synth record, because I have fallen in love with Japanese ambient music, and the synthesizers give you the opportunity to really get deep in the sound and deep in the micro-movements of the oscillators or filters. It’s a very delicate record and the two other records are a bit more raw in the texture. A piece like “La nuit bleue” on the newest record can be played on whatever the instrument is, and there are lots of pieces on this album that translate to symphonies, but I chose to do it with vintage keys. It’s more where I want to go, not to remove the classical inspiration in my music, but to push the boundaries of what instrumentation can be part of classical music. I’m very inspired by Wendy Carlos, who played Baroque music on synthesizers, so it’s the starting point of my artistic journey, and after that I entered into the more ambient stuff. I studied classical music a lot, and I really enjoy taking classical techniques of writing and orchestration into synthesizers, because for me, orchestration in classical music and for synthesizers are the same to me.
Can you talk about your studies in university? What was your focus?
I studied composition, but not really. I studied musical writing, counterpoint, fugue, orchestration, and harmony. When you study composition you have to enter a box where you have to write in 20th century contemporary classical music, which is often very dissonant music. This was not what I liked in music, I really liked harmonies, the light in the music, the vibration of pure intervals. When I was in the conservatory at the university here, I didn’t enjoy composition courses. It’s very interesting, but the professors didn’t want to go where I wanted to go, like a more classical way but with synthesizers and odd instruments. I decided to go to France and studied hardcore classical teachings. I had the same courses that Ravel and Debussy had, in terms of what the courses were about. The last exam was to write a fugue in the style of Bach for an organ without a piano for 16 hours straight. The day after, we went to the cathedral and played the fugue and we got to hear it for the first time. I play piano but I was very interested in musical writing and the fundamentals of classical music. Now I know the basis, so I can put it in my own way.
Did you find a love for synthesizers before you attended school? Or was it something that you became interested in after your studies?
During my studies, I was too busy to learn anything else apart from music writing, but I always loved synths before, because I had several synths at home and a Hammond organ. I was a big fan of prog music. I think this is where I come from. I come from old prog music, and you have the Hammond organs, Moogs, and Mellotrons. But at that time, there was no information on the records about the instruments, but I had those sounds in my head. After my studies, I said to myself “What do I really want to do now?” And this is where I realized that I really liked classical writing, but I’m not into classical orchestration, but I love strings a lot, and love vintage keys. So I just put it together. I felt it was a statement to write harmonic music at this time. At the beginning I was a bit shy to put it out into the world, but now I feel that this is really what I like when I listen to music, so now I’m more like “It’s okay to play major chords and minor chords,” but at the beginning it was a bit of a statement to do it.
What kind of music in particular did you grow up listening to?
When I was 11, I bought a huge collection of vinyl, and I would just pick the ones I had heard about. It was all classic prog rock. Genesis, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors. So all the classic 70s prog were the only records I had, so I listened to them a lot. Of course, I took piano lessons, so I played Bach and classical things, but I wasn’t really into it. I played it mechanically for the teacher. At around 14, I started to play guitar, like Led Zeppelin and all those rock bands influenced my guitar. I started on classical guitar first though. Because all the teachers said to me that if you want to play electric guitar you have to begin with classical guitar, so I studied that for five years. One day a teacher of mine gave me a Bach piece to play with three lines of counterpoint and I wasn’t able to play the three at once, so I just played all three lines individually. That was the moment where I was like “Oh my God. This is counterpoint. The lines are so beautiful. And they all work together.” I remember that was game-changing for me. That day I realized that this was what I wanted to do, this was how I wanted to write. I finished these guitar studies and attended the University of Montreal. I wasn’t really into synthesizers at that time. First there was prog, and then there was Bach, and after that there was synthesizers.
You’re about to go on your first US headline tour for the release of 8 Tableaux. Will this tour be solo or are you bringing your usual band with you?
I’m going on tour with five musicians and a soundman. I always play with a string quartet, because the core of the music is played by the strings. For the first tour we did in late 2024, I was the only keyboard player, but now for this headliner tour, I come with another musician, so we will be two synth players, with the other guy also playing percussion and marimba, and I have the classic Flore Laurentienne setup with two Wurlitzers, a MiniMoog and a MS-10 for sequences. So it’s kind of a chamber-synth orchestra.
Are you arranging your new material to fit the additional members?
Always. There are always things to do in the live versions, for example I play bass with my left hand and the organ parts with my right hand, but if there is another synth player I can ask him to play parts. We play a lot of tunes on 8 Tableaux with a string quartet too. There is a lot of improvisation, so all the concerts are different, but we can play the same song, but the song doesn’t always play the same way. It’s cool to not be on autopilot, that’s why I always put some improvisation in the set so the musicians stay alive.
If you could re-imagine the score to any film, what film would you choose and why?
First of all, I’m not a movie person, I don’t watch a lot of movies. I think the worst thing you can do to me is show me images and tell me to write music on them. I can’t do that because my creative process is not as precise as something in a movie. When I do film scores- I’ve done two or three- I tell the producer that I don’t want to see the movie. I read the script, I write the themes, and tell them they can take whatever they want from what I make. I don’t want to work on images and time the music to the clips. I really want to be a composer, not a film composer, but I know that my music can fit well, because it’s instrumental and there are images inside my music, but this isn’t my goal. There aren’t many film composers that have a touring band and play concerts. I’m much more into playing live than spending my whole life in the studio.
I find it interesting that you say that, because 8 Tableaux, as you said, is inspired by images. Do you find that that record could almost be a score to the body of work that the artist Riopelle has made?
That’s interesting. The paintings are not moving, they’re images with no timeframe, and my music is always inspired by colors, feelings, or landscapes, so the painting’s colors are very important, but I never think about it in this way. But humans are contradicting.
Thanks so much for talking with me. Anything else you’d like to say?
We’ll be playing some new unreleased music in the set that we’re rehearsing with this new band. I don’t know. It’s always surprising, we want to push the boundaries of the pieces and reinterpret them. If we cross the border, we’ll be there!