Etienne Dufresne

Coming from the Radio Enfer generation, Etienne Dufresne grew up submerged in his parents’ progressive rock, somewhere between Victoriaville and Magog. Very young, he taught himself guitar in the hopes of impressing his father. Once in Montreal, he infiltrated the music scene as a photographer before fulfilling his own aspirations as a singer-songwriter. It was only after a series of professional and romantic downfalls that he started instinctively composing song fragments on his acoustic guitar, enhancing them using various softwares on his computer. Fuelled by an urge to express himself, his solo project then takes flight, using a very personal writing style and a rather experimental production process.

Etienne then decided to take advantage of the temporal abyss that inevitably loomed over his life to write his first album, Excalibur. Co-produced with Félix Petit, Excalibur is a clever blend of deconstructed genres. Still tinged with the raw character of the acoustic guitar, this second project unfurls and seeps into synthetic sounds and samples that borrow from both electro and R&B. Etienne reasserts his familiar style of writing, where the smart choice of words wins over the heavy lyrical feel. Well anchored in its time, the music refuses to label itself as it meshes together a myriad of influences forming a homogeneous and unique sound that stands out from other current Francophone productions. Excalibur was released on May 7th 2021 and surely reaffirmed that Etienne Dufresne is an artist to follow closely.

Listen to “Canal Évasion” and “Bébé” now!