Paupière

Originally a trio from Montréal (now a duo) "Paupière" contains both the French words for "skin" and for "stone", organic and mineral, sensitive and hard. And it's this singular duality that "Paupière" plays with on their albums. This poetic play on words and meanings is what makes the trio's lyrics pointed and original, especially given their Quebec roots. Paupière's underground sensuality, abetted by the glamorous and flamboyant duo they form on stage, places them alongside other Montrealers that combine dance music and queer ambiguity, like Bernardino Femminielli, Jef Barbara and Peter Peter. In "Paupière", you also find the word "pop". Their sensitive writing is harnessed to serve the melody: melody and its repetition, melody and its recollection. Paupière's songs are bursting with those little bittersweet tunes you just can't get out of your head. Mixing English synth-pop and French chanson, Paupière is also in some ways a "neo-romantic" band, with the accent on "neo", brought up to speed for 2017. While you may hear echoes of Human League, Deux or Depeche Mode, the three interweaving voices are less concerned with the teenage and hedonistic romanticism of the 1980s than with contemporary disenchantment, like in the movies of fellow Quebecois Xavier Dolan, with whom they share a vision of shared destinies, part ultra-romantic, part hopeless. Thus, through their alchemy of music and love, Paupière conjure up freedom, a paradigm shift. Closing your eyelids while dancing or listening is akin to letting the world follow its course, letting it be. And that could very well be a generational call to arms: close your eyes, you'll see a lot better.