Laurent Bourque: Thinking of you

By Kerry Doole

Laurent Bourque - Thinking of you (Independent):  The Toronto singer-songwriter first made a splash with 2014 debut album, Pieces of Your Past, and by winning the Stingray Rising Star Award. After a period of reassessment, in 2018 he surpassed a personal goal to write 100 new songs and delved into co-writing.

A second album, Blue Hour, comes out Sept. 27 and features collaborations with producer Dan Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Fortunate Ones) and longtime creative partner and drummer Jamie Kronick.

This new single and video reaffirm Bourque as a talent to be watched. It shows off his gently mellow vocal style, and the sound has a soft rock/folk feel suggestive of Bahamas. Jenn Grant adds poppy back-up vocals on the choruses.

In a press release, Bourque explains that "Thinking Of You is one of the oldest songs I wrote on my own for this record.  It’s a song about daydreaming about a past relationship. It’s about those little vignettes and moments in time we reminisce about when we’re busy doing something else.

"It’s about the instinct to maybe reach out to that person we’re thinking about and wanting to ask them how they are or what they are up to; yet we always hold back due to being scared of seeming vulnerable. We all have these thoughts and instincts, yet we can rarely act on them. Like all the songs on Blue Hour, it was written on the piano, yet Dan Ledwell decided to make it a guitar forward song in the studio. It’s my summertime jam, or about as close as I get to that."

Bourque showcases at the Reeperbahn Festival and in London next month, followed by shows at Toronto's Burdock (Oct. 16) and Ottawa's NAC (Oct. 18).

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Publicity: Beth Cavanagh, What's The Story?