Corbeau du Nord: “Le Purgatoire” – epic, yet uniquely personal

Jason Bernier was born in 1978 in Longueuil, in the Montréal’s south shore, Québec. Coming from a modest background and raised by a single mother, his first contact with music was with a miniature wind organ of only 25 notes and 6 pre-made chords. Very quickly, the instrument became restrictive for his thirst of learning and creation of new melodies.

Lack of financial resources kept him away from his passion, but fortunately, fate struck when he was mistakenly placed in classical guitar lessons in his final year of high school. After more than ten thousand hours of practice and two musical projects later, Jason is proud to present his project Corbeau du Nord era in his infinite musical quest.

Corbeau du Nord has just recently released its 8 track, Gothic-Neoclassical album entitled, “Le Purgatoire”. I difficult to describe what you’ll experienced throughout this almost cinematic soundtrack, but I can say that it left such an emotional impact on me that I was still shaking after it finished.

The score swells and boils and builds to an eruption that washes over you like a wave. The wave then pulls back and then washes over you again and again. The music though epic, feels uniquely personal especially by you being able to isolate and pick out the diverse instrumentation. While this is a very electronic heavy score it never feels synthetic and is organic in every sense of the word.

Emotionally it can be aggressive and at times extremely harsh, but it has a gentle side of incredible beauty. What Corbeau du Nord does best is that every imaginary cue builds like a separate story on its own. Almost like a writer writing a screenplay. You could easily apply the a storyboard structure to every song on this album.

The songs each have an introduction, building, climax and then resolution. Most of the songs stay extremely melodic like for example “Rêves” and in part “La Beauté Et La Guerre” and “L’Ancienne Cathédrale”. The title track “Le Purgatoire” is an intense and grand assault on the senses that will get your heart racing and probably leave you gasping for air.

“Le Vent Qui Passe”, which is such an extraordinarily beautiful track introduces an acoustic-guitar driven theme which unusual for this type of album. If I had to pick one track that defined this score and its composer it would probably be “L’Ère Des Tempêtes”, as it starts off stripped down, and then builds through toward its climax through varying timbres and moods.

Diving into Corbeau du Nord’s labyrinthine musical worlds with no images as your guide is not such a daunting task as it may seem. Yes you will get lost at times, but you will love every second of it. This is an extreme musical trip into the unknown…into Purgatory. Yet listening to the slower pieces which evoke such grace, mood and emotional pull, it can’t be so bad being in there, can it?

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