Un Blonde is the recording project of Calgary ex-pat Jean-Sebastien Audet, a musician who defies any clear genre label in favour of variation, cross-pollination and experimentalism. His latest album, Good Will Come to You, is a great example, a melting pot of acoustic guitars, field recordings, gentle beats and vocal harmonies which traverses the musical gamut from folk to gospel to indie rock and back again.
The breezy ‘Celebration’ and earthy ‘On My Grind’ open the release, Audet blending vocals and field recording to great effect, before ‘Open Sesame’ really points to the scope of things with its urgent, mystical vibe. Similarly devotional instrumentals like ‘Exercise A’ and ‘Heat of the Afternoon’ offer landscapes which the other tracks populate, so when gentle, swelling folk songs like ‘Staying in Line’ arrive it feels like a convergence from four corners, the consequence of great distance travelled and firm belief in peace and joy. “Good will come to you,” he sings in the latter, echoing the title. “Good will come to me. Good will come to us.”
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Indeed, much of the album is infused with this sense of positivity and goodwill, a sense of spirituality which binds the tracks despite their diversity. Many of the songs are short, succinct snatches and textures, and all are grounded with a certain intimacy, the spirituality not some vast cosmological fear but instead a human communion, joyous meetings of small groups of people thankful to be alive. From the tropical jam of ‘Take Me Higher’ and finger-clicking swells of ‘The Real Way’ to the sensual ‘A Level Playing Field’ and bluesy and soulful ‘Rain Cannot Change’, Good Will Come To Us is brimming with a confidence in the world, its inhabitants and their ability to transcend ‘normal’ existence in favour of something altogether more wonderful.
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Good Will Come To You is actually the second part of a trilogy the label describes as “genre-spanning”, each of the three records exploring a different aspect of Audet’s musical talents. The first part, Water the Next Day, was released in April and sees an Un Blonde that use synths and electronic drums in place of the acoustic. Blending jazz with R&B and soul, here the songs are spheres and down-tempo and drowned in space. Audet is either lifting the avant garde into listenable territory or pushing popular R&B into exciting new place. 
You can buy Water the Next Day and Good Will Come To You now via the Egg Paper Factory Bandcamp page or the Un Blonde Bandcamp page.
Photo by Derek Haussecker