L'Heptade

L'Heptade is the third and final album from Harmonium. It was released as a double-LP in 1976 and is considered by some critics to be one of the most important Québécois albums in popular music.

Album description

L'Heptade is composed of seven core songs, in order: Comme un fou (Like a mad man), Chanson noire (Black song), Le premier ciel (The first heaven), L'exil (The exile), Le corridor (The hallway), Lumières de vie (Lights of life), and Comme un sage (Like a wise man). These seven songs were mainly written by the band leader Serge Fiori. The title, heptade, is the compound of two Greek affixes, hept- (seven) and -ade, which expresses both the notion of group (décade, pléiade) and epic movement (as in Iliad). Fiori mentioned, at the beginning of the live album of L'Heptade, that the album, framed in seven songs, was evoking the journey of a man in one day through seven levels of consciousness. Clues that the whole journey occurs in a single day are given on the original album. For example, a rapid sigh of a man waking up, followed by steps on a cracked wooden floor can be heard in the prologue, the first musical movement preceding the first core song. A man preparing to sleep can be heard in the finale of the album.