Lili Roquelin culminated the ending of 2012 with the release of her latest creative creation “Beautiful Sun” which is truly remarkable to say the least!
“Beautiful Sun” marks Lili’s third release since her debut EP in 2008. What I love most about Lili’s style is her passionate story telling augmented by her innovative musicianship. For her latest project, she performed all of the vocals, piano arrangements and composed the intricate melodies with fellow musicians to get that distinct sound. The video below showcases Lili’s creative process for each song.
Lili begins “Beautiful Sun” with a track about forgiveness in “Like a Feather” the absolutely most hardest thing to do is to forgive yourself and others. With each chord, she walks you through each weighed step towards the freedom that it brings. “I had written a poem some time before I started working on the album. The poem was about forgiving, how you can free yourself up by simply forgiving someone or something, or even yourself, instead of holding grudges for years”, Lili reveals, “you'll feel just as light as a feather and you're doing it for yourself too. When I started to hear in my head the music that would go with the story it was this light, uplifting almost-ballad like little song. The result is exactly what I wanted for the song, probably the most pop song I've ever written.”
On the title track “Beautiful Sun”, is a love tribute to Lili’s love for the sun. Each pause, verse, keystroke is part of this tapestry that she weaves for listeners. If you close your eyes, this song can transport you to the moment when the sun hits your face – preferably in the midst of a spring morning not the current winter season.
After a few listens of this CD, I have to admit that my favorite track is “Thank You”. I’m a proponent of showing gratitude to others or taking a moment to acknowledge how far I’ve come. Lili has done just that in this song. She describes this song as “a very important message to me, it has been my therapy, and gave a whole new meaning to Life in my eyes. The lyrics speak for themselves. It has an emotional progression, and during the composition and the mixing/mastering it was very important to me that we keep the internal dynamics of it.” Well done.
The track that I thought it was ingenious was “Don't Wait”, which she recorded both in English (track 6) and in French (track 9). This jazz/blues track is a plea to be vulnerable and use your inner voice to speak from your heart. This song is so freeing! In comparing both versions of this track, Lili notes that, “the vocal arrangements ended up being completely different, it's interesting how a different language can change the tones of the harmonies”.
Lili also shows her other sides of music expression with the aggressive guitar-licks and empowering track “Try to Remember”; rock-edge, love track “The Only One”; as well as the haunting, mystery track “Bliss of My Soul”.
With the track “Oh Brother”, she collaborated with Sam Scozzari (who co-wrote "Come and Hear Your Story" on her sophomore release 'Will You Hate The Rest of The World or Will You Renew Your Life'), to tell the story of a sister singing to her brother who went to war with the thought of her not seeing him again. I found the arrangements on this soothing as it accompanied the emotional lyrics, Lili recounts “when I started to compose around the song I totally saw landscapes like Antarctica, so I researched and found synths and samples that had been done from real sounds of icicles and wind. I think it does well to the atmosphere.”
To sum it up, the beautifulness of “Beautiful Sun” is the cure for the soul!
-Chante
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