Matthias & Maxime (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Jean-Michel Blais

• 1 L'amitié 01:33
• 2 Les feuilles mortes 01:37
• 3 Le lac 02:53
• 4 La blessure I (skit) 00:13
• 5 La blessure I 02:15
• 6 Le souper 01:54
• 7 La solitude (skit) 00:16
• 8 La solitude 02:12
• 9 La blessure II 00:56
• 10 La ferme 01:44
• 11 Un autre amour 02:46
• Total Runtime 18:19

Info for Matthias & Maxime (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

French-Canadian composer and pianist Jean-Michel Blais will release the soundtrack to Canadian director Xavier Dolan’s upcoming film release, Matthias & Maxime, on Arts & Crafts on October 25. The Montreal-based composer was chosen by the acclaimed actor and film-maker to write the music for the film, which received its world premiere on May 22 at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. There is a long love story between Cannes and Dolan has he is in fact the youngest director to ever receive the Jury Prize.

The music for the Matthias & Maxime Official Soundtrack was developed in close collaboration between Blais and Dolan in the studio, using techniques derived from improvisation, with the music of Franz Schubert serving as a point of inspiration. Unusually for a feature film, certain tracks were developed first, the scene was shot to the music, and then edited to fit it, rather than the other way around.

Directly approached by Dolan, Blais was eager to take on the project: “I was touched, moved, incredulous... without reading the script, I accepted right away. Growing up with every single movie [Dolan] has made, it was a simple choice for me cancel my vacations and get to work. Following a fairly unorthodox process, we ended up keeping the demos, improvised in the studio - variations on a Schubert theme - creating a cohesive musical soundscape that Xavier used during the shoot and the editing period.”

MORE ABOUT XAVIER DOLAN Xavier Dolan was born in Montréal, Canada, and is known for his work as actor, screenwriter and director. He won the Jury Prize at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival for his film Mommy and went on to direct the music video for Adele’s chart-topping “Hello”. In Matthias & Maxime, Dolan stars as Max alongside Harris Dickinson and Anne Dorval.

Jean-Michel Blais
is a post-classical pianist and composer from Montreal, Canada.

Blais grew up in a rural French Catholic town in Quebec and began tinkering on his family's organ at age 9. By 11, he began writing original compositions and taking piano lessons. A natural talent, by 17 he was invited to the Trois-Rivieres Music Conservatory and began training as a classical pianist. The constraints of formal training began to wear on Blais who started to gravitate towards experimentation and improvisation. He eventually left the school and put aside his musical path. Blais moved to Europe in his mid-20s living in Berlin and spent six months in South America before settling in Montreal where he rediscovered his love for composing and performing, which caught the ear of Toronto-based indie label Arts & Crafts.

Blais’ debut album, Il, was written and recorded in his apartment over two years by improvising every day. It was released on April 8, 2016, and amassed 50 million streams worldwide, reaching #1 on Billboard’s Classical chart in Canada 14 times, earning a Polaris Music Prize long list nomination and a spot on Time Magazine’s top ten albums of 2016.

The following year, Blais performed at the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy in collaboration with Grammy-nominated producer CFCF. This spurred a partnership between the two musicians that yielded Cascades, a collaborative EP released on March 15, 2017. The release earned praises for its brave interplay piano and electronics, including by the likes of Pitchfork and BBC Radio 6’s Mary Anne Hobbs.

After a year of touring North America and Europe, Blais began working on his sophomore album, Dans ma main. Now set for release on May 11, 2018. Jean-Michel Blais’ Dans ma main is an expansive album of post-classical piano music with strands of electronic detail.

Blending his classical skill and precise pop sensibility with synthetic accompaniment, Blais creates unique environments where the piano’s intimacy can be subtly disrupted at any time. Dans ma main weaves harmony and tension in a double-helix of acoustic and electronic arpeggiation, tethering techno, industrial, ambient, and new age music to Blais’ solo piano essence.

Fascinated with the cathartic response of audiences worldwide to his pin-drop performances, Blais considers how music has served as a tool of wellness in his own life: from his early career in special education, to his parents’ use of ambient music to soothe the Tourettic symptoms he experienced as a child. On Dans ma main, Jean-Michel calls upon these periods of his life, reimagining a serenity that he previously found only seated at a piano.

Dans ma main rolls like clouds of nostalgic fog blown away on a clear wind, at once recalling and signifying the end of Il, pointing listeners to a new and possibly endless horizon of Blais’ musical imagination.

This album contains no booklet.