Surviving members of P.E.I. trio Vishtèn turn Pastelle LeBlanc's ideas into musical journeys
CBC
A time of great loss has led to a collaboration by members of two of P.E.I.'s best-known bands, with voices from Vishtèn and The East Pointers merging on a song that has just been released.
The two surviving members of the award-winning Acadian roots group Vishtèn found more than 100 unfinished song ideas on Pastelle LeBlanc's devices after she died of breast cancer in April 2022.
Pastelle's life partner Pascal Miousse and her twin sister Emmanuelle LeBlanc are turning six of them into duets with a variety of other musicians for an EP that will be released in March 2024. Four have been recorded, with two more planned for sessions in December.
The first single now out from the project dubbed Vishtèn Connexions, a bilingual track called More Love, was issued under the name 6 Hearts.
That number includes LeBlanc and Miousse from Vishtèn as well as Tim Chaisson and Jake Charron of The East Pointers, another former trio that lost bandmate Koady Chaisson just three months before Pastelle LeBlanc died.
"It just kind of came together organically," Emanuelle LeBlanc told CBC's Matt Rainnie in an interview, describing the creative process leading up to a joint show with The East Pointers at the Trailside Cafe in Charlottetown. "We really did feel like Pastelle and Koady, the two other hearts, were there with us."
A video version of More Love directed by P.E.I. filmmaker Millefiore Clarkes is due out on YouTube on Nov. 3.
LeBlanc says the song was based on a musical "message of hope" found on her sister's phone during the excavation process, dating back to February of 2018, with the lyrics mostly in place.
"It was a strong mix of just, yeah, finding it really hard to listen to — yet at the same seeing so much beauty into it," she said of becoming immersed in all that creativity. "There could be 200 pieces, we're not sure yet."
In the summer of 2021, she said, Vishtèn had started inviting guest artists to join them during their shows. After losing Pastelle, and then finding her raw songs, that concept became a way of paying tribute to her.
"I find comfort in listening to her voice and listening to her playing some instruments.... If I'm kind of feeling down, I'll just listen to one of her tracks. And for Pascal, it took him a little more time to listen to them, but he's ready now...
"She really had some incredible ideas, you know, in all different styles."
There are Irish influences as well as Québécois and Acadian bents in the melodic snippets Pastelle sings and plays in the recordings, which the duo is archiving with the help of a Canada Council grant.
"These hints that she's left us really give us a direction of who we should approach to collaborate with," said LeBlanc.
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