Inner Ear is a monthly installment of music-of-the-moment selected by Heavy Trip, a booking agency and curatorial platform based in Montreal / Tiohtià:ke, Canada. Each episode is curated by one of the team’s core staff: Michaël (Libra), Rebecca (Leo) and Andrew (Pisces). With eclectic tastes centering around a certain je ne sais quoi, you can expect blissful jazz, dubby excursions, left-field heaters, outernational jams, contemporary r&b and everything in between.

This month’s episode is hosted by Flore Laurentienne.

Flore Laurentienne is an open window to the technicolor soundscapes of Mathieu David Gagnon – the Canadian composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist who shapes vast orchestral sound to interpret the rugged wilderness and waters of his native Québec. The namesake of an inventory documenting St. Lawrence Valley flora, Flore Laurentienne illumes the science and spirit of his surrounds through expansive string orchestrations melded with the textures and experimentation of early analogue synths.

Following the compass and critical acclaim of his Volume Idebut, Flore Laurentienne returned in October 2022 with Volume II to resume his voyage into environment and emotion. Recorded with string and clarinet ensembles along with Gagnon’s signature modulation, Volume II explores forces of water as metaphorical markers to navigate passages of life and loss, . Reflecting the parallel tenors of nature and humankind, Volume II locates another estuary in Flore Laurentienne’s tides toward contemporary sonic romanticism.

In his approach to composition hued by leitmotif and constraint, Gagnon challenges himself to extract beauty from simplicity in homage to the changing faces of natural landscapes. The presence of familiarity and flux in Volume Iis heightened through the vivid instrumentation of a fifteen-piece string orchestra, which Gagnon brings together with an array of 1960s and 70s synthesizers, including the Minimoog Model D, the EMS Synthi and combo organs – an innately ambitious project which forges the composer’s distinctive path in the expansion of classical music archetypes.