Caroline Rose and La Force in Montreal
Shot and written by Eva Lynch
April 9th, 2024
Montreal, QC @ Le Studio TD
La Force, otherwise known as Montreal’s own Ariel Engle, has a unique ability to conjure such visceral emotion with her voice, where she makes a home and invites you in. While opening for Caroline Rose at Le Studio TD, she created a space for herself on the floor, in front of the stage, where everyone gathered around her on equal footing. It felt like watching her perform in her living room; intimate and familiar but still breathtaking, as her soft yet powerful tone and vulnerable lyricism make you forget the world.
I meet two women in the front row who sing along to every word with me and jokingly call me their daughter throughout the rest of the night as they show me other musicians they love and to listen to. She begins the night classically by running through a series of cassette recordings of voice notes, reenactments of the conversation with her insurance provider she sings about later on, conversations with her mother, which she moths along to as if the child’s voice is coming straight out of her, and more; before launching into song, as her drummer Tom O’Neill slowly joins in.
Her album XO Skeleton is one of my favorite albums from the past year, its imaginative imagery and dazzling vocals create a world which is steeped in mysticism and everyday mundane encounters which together create something ethereal and dreamlike, while overwhelmingly empowering and sincere.
During her performance she debuts a new song called “Protection,” which was the whole theme of her last album XO Skeleton and clearly a continuous curiosity, singing about her desire to protect her daughter and enshroud her in love. She suggests there is more new music to come and says that her next record is going to be a dance album, which I can’t wait for -- as even her most somber songs compel you to dance and get lost in their rhythms. La Force is this way too as a performer, always moving in some way to the music. She sings with her whole body, beautifully bringing the stories within the songs to life and their performance. She plays around with their performance and embodiment, where for instance during her song “Ouroboros”, she sheds her metaphorical skin and slowly unwraps layer after layer of her dress, unwinding the fabric to reveal a shimmery, snakeskin-like dress underneath as she sings to the snake eating its own tail and her desires to break out of a toxic cycle she feels stuck in.
La Force was perfectly paired as a touring partner for Caroline Rose as Caroline’s haunting and powerful voice rang out and there was a clear similarity between their voices from her very first song, “Tell Me What You Want.” La Force was also full of praise for the headliner, saying beforehand that she was so fun to tour with, as every night Caroline improvised something new on stage. She played center stage, surrounded by near-translucent hanging panels of fabric which captured layers of projection on them, as the lights moved between the fabric and members of her band who were staggered between each layer.
La Force
Slowly entering stage to an ambient soundscape, Caroline looks like she walked right off the streets of Montreal with her blonde rocker shag and bright red cardigan. Her voice seems to find a midground somewhere between country, folk, rock and indie, psychedelic pop, with a distinct yet inexplicable twang to it. She shows off her powerful range with drastic switches of tone and tempo, often breaking into energetic runs complimented by blasting colourful lights, which is contrasted to the more somber moments where she is illuminated by only a spotlight. Despite these contrasts, she had the crowd dancing and eating up every moment. Her voice is especially powerful for being in the process of getting over a cold; she asks for a hot toddy as she’s on stage and jokes that on tour she always goes out and immediately gets sick and then is recovering for the rest of the leg. She elaborates further to say that whenever she enters the sick stage, she feels like she becomes a Victorian child, asking for animal fats, clean air and to be fanned on a daybed, in reference to her pre-show dinner at L’Express where she enjoyed some of Montreal’s french cuisine and ate bone marrow for dinner.
Her energy was contagious and full of fun as she clearly enjoyed herself, joking around on stage. She took advantage of it being her drummer’s birthday to stage dive in celebration, and paused her performance half way through to sip her hot toddy, joking that she was going to try stand-up to pass the time because whenever she has a mic in hand, she feels like she is meant to give it a try but never knows what she’s going to say and says tonight may be the night she gets canceled. She continues on a tangent, asking how TD bank started this little club. For charity? For pity? Then concludes that they probably write it off for taxes, before asking, “do you guys even have taxes here?”
She effortlessly switched between shredding guitar and singing and dancing on stage with these moments of humour, and put her full body into the performance, giving it her all. It paid homage to her more folk and country driven roots, while showing her growth as an artist and how she is tonally changing and transforming and creating her own fusion of genres, particularly with her latest, grammy-nominated album, The Art of Forgetting, and its emotional and tonal shift from her past.
The show felt intimate and friendly where both artists made real efforts to connect with the audience and be themselves while in the spotlight. Their effortless ability and talent, and grounded personalities shone through for a remarkably fun night.
Caroline Rose
