Jean-Michel Blais: mirador

Jean-Michel Blais was ready to make an epic.

mirador, the pianist-composer's fourth album, finds the Montrealer turning his gaze onto a wondrous world—exchanging contemporary minimalism for a light and generous maximalism. It's an odyssey that spans choirs, strings and the music of the Andes, from Spanish caves to Estonian forests and all the way back to the basement in Nicolet, Québec, where Blais first imagined adventures.

After 375 million streams and the biggest concerts of his life, the origins of mirador were remembrances from childhood. As a musical kid—and, even if he wasn't fully aware of these things yet, as a queer person, with Tourette's—Blais' basement was his imaginary lookout, his "mirador," from which he could dream of the world. There, he'd browse in wonder through a Larousse encyclopedia; he'd play with the family's cheap Hammond organ and endlessly replay the same cassettes.

For 2022's aubades, Blais had begun experimenting with orchestration. Now, he was drawn to the promise of the human voice—of singing as "pure instrument." Working from his apartment's flimsy kitchen island, Blais conceived a 12-part chorus, without lyrics. Soon, with help from William Brittelle (LA Philharmonic, The National), he had assembled a choir of baroque singers—and then added a string quartet of his friends.

Composing this material "unleashed something," Blais says. One of his prized childhood tapes had been a bootleg of music from the Andes, recorded off the radio. His parents, who were amateur ballroom dancers, had taught their son to dance the salsa, the mambo, and the cha-cha. He had taught himself Spanish—and was so moved by his first visit to Central America that he wanted to quit the music conservatory and give all his possessions away. Throughout Blais' twenties, he made visits to Nicaragua, Guatemala and Argentina, falling in love with traditional Andean folksong, especially artists like Los Kjarkas and Charijayac.

Now, Blais enlisted Tulio Velazco Villagra, a Montrealer who grew up on the shores of Lake Titicaca—and a master of Andean instruments like the zampoña. Elsewhere, on tracks like "laulasmaa," he was inspired by encounters with composer Arvo Pärt during a residency in Estonia. Slowly, mirador became like turning the pages of a storybook—travelling through time, crisscrossing the globe, drawing on influences from Ariel Ramirez to TLC, and Beethoven to Portishead.

The completed LP is like a make-believe lookout. From the Andean reverie of "carnavalito" to "kyrie’s” sacred chorale (or is it a sea-shanty?), it's a reminder that even starting with nothing, you can create so much. On mirador, Jean-Michel Blais offers a path back to childhood—cut a crown from a piece of paper and suddenly you have a kingdom.