#1. Prosaïque (Prosaic)
Waking up in a cold city that resounds with police and ambulance sirens, and preferring to go back to sleep to go back to sleep rather than face it all. Halfway between fear, laziness and renunciation.
“ Prosaïque ” is a self-portrait of Loïc (Lo Bailly), painting his work environment as a moodboard in the form of confidence.
The construction of the text, passing from the third person to the second, to finish in the first, supports the fact that the author accepts himself progressively such as he is, in his uncertainty and his poetic disorder.
#2. HS
HS (Hypersensitive) talks about emotions and inner fears. The fear of facing our own emotions, the fear of the unknown, of the void. In these cases, we tend not to take responsibility and to withdraw into ourselves, to go backwards.
In the music video directed by Simon Vanrie, this fear is represented by the height and the sensation of vertigo, but ends with a dive.
Let's not be afraid to lose our balance and take the plunge. Let's embrace being out of touch, out of order and hypersensitive
#3. Étoile filante (Shooting star)
If you don't have the courage to do it yourself, you might as well follow the path set by someone else. Or is it it is love that can set us in motion?
“Etoile filante” is about the search for a soul mate in all its confusion and setbacks.
The abandonment to the other, the lack of confidence in oneself and in the other. But also the false idea that things can be frozen, while they are in constant movement and evolution. There is no point in trying to hold on to what wants to go away.
#4. Coléoptères (Beetles)
Daytime wanderings in Brussels, the head lost in thoughts and reveries. All this in stark contrast to what is all around us when we return to reality.
Lo presents his wanderings in a big city, compared in the text to a big nest of insects whose hosts had better protect their wings, or even spread them, while there is still time.
#5. Palabres (Palavers)
What's the point of criticizing the greater whole if we can't see that we ourselves are part of it? From our generalized self-centeredness (embodied in the first-person verses) to our inability to deal with societal problems ("G20 screws up the soil, 5G screws up your brain"), Lo draws parallels between the individual and the world in which he evolves. In the end, don't we often have the life we deserve, in a place that reflects us, surrounded by people who share the same defaults as us?
#6. Il y a là quelque chose (There is something there)
A ride at dusk in a city like its citizens; under tension. Interlude acting as a bridge between the first and second part of the album. The character starts to leave his house and
realizes that his inner disorder matches quite well with what is going on outside.
A certain palpable nervousness, embodied by the out-of-tune sounds of the piano, contrasts with Lo's calm and composed voice, like a series of confidences recorded on a Dictaphone.
#7. Ambulance
Excesses, individual and/or collective, and the feeling of being overloaded push the character to the limit, towards the complete explosion of his achievements.
Whether in his emotional life or in his relationship with the world, Lo describes with a certain urgency the need to call in reinforcements his relationship with the world, Lo describes with a certain urgency the need to call in reinforcements to save the day.
All of this on a more rock musical production brilliantly accompanied by the drums of Antoine Pierre (aka VAAGUE ), and an electric guitar that replaces, for a while, the usual keyboard sounds of the project.
#8. Maryline
Perhaps it is them, our ancestors, who will help us to see more clearly the course of our lives. If Maryline could simply remember who I am. Standing there, her gaze sometimes turned towards the void, she waits for something, or someone. She doesn't really know anymore... Back to the basics, admittedly wavering, and to the roots. As if to put the violence of the world into perspective, Lo paints a tender and sincere portrait of aging as he sees it evolving in his surroundings.
#9. Coléoptères part.2 (Beetles part.2)
Chill and sunny instrumental, echoing the tenderness previously developed in "Maryline", and contrasting with the state of emergency, close to the end, developed so far in the album. An ambient, almost naive track before plunging one last time into the gravity of the abyss...
"The way it goes will soon have to save itself from sentences that say too much."
... and just float along.
"Like beetles..."
#10. Tarim
He left at nightfall. Things were not meant to be the way they are. Neither was the world was not supposed to turn out this way either. Could things be fixed? Did we want to?
The album's finale (without being its conclusion), Tarim is about the aborted escape to a new world. Symbolised here by a Uyghur seeking to escape from oppression, this "quest for the best" comes up against the brutal reality of men and their choices dictated by fear. All this on a musical production ending in a violent stormy chaos.
#11. Chiens, angoras, perdrix (Dogs, angoras, partridges)
An intimate and sensitive outro that praises the great outdoors and old species. If he sometimes seems to have to understand his contemporaries, Lo seems to have less difficulty in talking to animals... The chapter ends as it began, with the strange feeling of being alone amongst 7 billion human beings who are similar in every way.
Sometimes a vocation is the result of an anomaly. Lo Bailly can testify to this. Born into a family that was stranger to the world of music, the Brussels-based singer began his path by finding a synth and a guitar in a corner of his parents's house. If nobody knows where these instruments come from, Lo Bailly knows where he is going. Self-taught pianist, trained in journalism and political communication, he quickly put his writing skills to music. Sharp pen, sharp writing, the artist puts
words to his emotions.
An adept of the spoken word, heir to the Beat Generation poets, Lo Bailly first followed in the footsteps of artists such as Veence Hanao or Scylla by winning, like them, the Du F. dans le Texte competition. In the following months, the singer gives a glimpse of "Parades". Doped by a chiaroscuro writing, this first E.P. spreads its melancholic charmsat the crossroads of genres. Between electronic pulsations, French song and urban poetry, Lo Bailly's flow embraces piano notes, caressed with his fingertips.
This unique style is now exposed over the length of an album. The glow in his voice, Lo Bailly illuminates an era plunged into darkness. Fatalist, but never resigning,
the man from Brussels braves reality and contemplates our lives without hypocrisy or pretence. Closer to reality and the jolts of the modern world, the singer dissects human nature through uncompromising observations. In the end, Lo Bailly's songs probe the depths of the soul to sketch out a finely tuned work. Crafted alongside drummer Antoine Pierre (Vaague, TaxiWars) and producer Olvo, the first season of "Prosaïque" lifts the veil on a series with no downtime.
Produced by Lo Bailly, mixed by Staf Verbeeck (Selah Sue, BRNS, Hooverphonic), this first album offers an alternative to the French song. On a track like "Coléoptères", for example, the author and composer touches the anticipation story through a sublime piano-voice. Composed well before the first Russian strikes on the Ukraine, the song surveys the ruins of capitalism with the glance turned towards the Caspian Sea. Visionary. Elsewhere, the formula elaborated by the Belgian artist reaches real heights of expressiveness ("Palabres", "HS"). Lived by fictitious characters and others, like FKJ, very real, these five new pieces cultivate the love of risk and critical sense. On some tracks, Lo Bailly opens up musically and gives way to more rock sounds ("Ambulance", "Tarim").
Away from bling-bling and formatted choruses, Lo Bailly sings our reality and points out ways of thinking. For a future full of emotion.
