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Charlotte Cardin’s songwriting success has changed how she writes songs

CHARLOTTE CARDIN with CHRIS LAROCCA at Danforth Music Hall (147 Danforth), Friday (November 30), doors 7 pm, all ages. $30-$40. ticketmaster.ca.


In just two years, Montreal-based singer/songwriter Charlotte Cardin has gone from playing intimate shows at the Drake Hotel to headlining the Danforth Music Hall – all before she’s even released a debut album. 

“It’s a little bit surreal to be playing our own show there,” Cardin gushes over the phone. “[The Danforth] has such a lovely feel and this mystic vibe about it.” 

So much has changed for her in a short two years – changes not limited to the size of venues she’s playing in. 

Her rising profile is thanks to the strength of the multilingual songwriting on the handful of EPs and singles she’s released so far, starting with 2016’s Big Boy EP. That record saw her quickly take the number one spot on iTunes and earned her SOCAN Songwriting Prize nominations in both English and French languages, the first artist ever to do so in the same year. She built on that momentum in 2017 with another EP, Main Girl, which earned her two JUNO nominations in the breakthrough artist of the year and songwriter of the year categories, and 15 million streams worldwide.

While some French-speaking artists have a hard time breaking out in Quebec and the rest of Canada, Cardin’s growing popularity outside of her home province is keeping pace (recent dates in Québec City and Sherbrooke have all been at venues the same capacity as the Danforth) due in large part to her and her band’s relentless touring. She admits that they expected a colder reception to the French-language songs, but “when we play the French songs in the U.S. or English parts of Canada, people have been really enjoying them.”

She says that touring so much has made it hard for her to maintain personal relationships. “You feel like you’re not really rooted anywhere, and it’s hard to keep those relationships sustained,” she says. 

Being the intuitive songwriter that she is, Cardin turned that frustration into creative inspiration, releasing the single California last spring, which focuses on a long-distance relationship. 

The video uses footage of Cardin, taken in portrait mode on an iPhone and from FaceTime, which when viewed in full screen on a cell phone makes it seem as though Cardin’s singing directly to you. It’s like the Snapchat-era version of Chet Baker singing into his studio microphone with a quiet croon, drawing listeners closer and forging a strong sense of intimacy. For Cardin, FaceTime is a necessity for staying connected to friends and family while on the road.

“Human interaction is just so fascinating,” she observes. “Humans have been around for thousands and thousands of years and yet there’s no right or perfect way to communicate. Every time you meet someone new, whether it’s a friend, colleague or lover, you start from scratch and learn how to act around them.” 

Those tenuous points of friction between people are what Cardin gravitates to most in her songwriting, whether drawn from her own life or imagined. “Sometimes I’ll just see two people fighting on the street and won’t know if they’re friends, if they’re together or if they’re even related,” she says. “I’ll just write my own take on the little glimpse into someone else’s life that I just saw.”

Though not much writing happens on tour, performing offers the opportunity to workshop unreleased material, like upcoming single Les Jupes. Driven by a simple vocal and piano melody, the song takes a unique turn with the introduction of a vocoder in the chorus, giving it a chilling edge as Cardin admonishes a man who finds comfort in anonymous, no-strings-attached relationships, moving from one girl to the next. 

“We started playing it [with the vocoder] live and thought it was so fun,” she recalls. “It’s just so surprising, and it makes it more fun to perform and so we kept it that way in the recording.” 

Reflecting on everything she’s learned over the past two years, Cardin credits life on the road with shaping the artist she is today. “Touring is all about adapting to new situations and learning a lot about yourself, your music and your performances.

“We’ve learned so much!”

@nowtoronto | @therewasnosound

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