Martin Larose & Anaïs Vanessa Deliver a Powerful Reflection on Anxiety with “Breathe In Breathe Out”
Martin Larose and Anaïs Vanessa today release “Breathe In Breathe Out,” the luminous and searching new single from their forthcoming collaborative album The Solivagant Tales, both out now. Where their partnership has already demonstrated its capacity for politically charged progressive rock, this new track turns the lens inward – a visceral, emotionally precise meditation on anxiety, the need for stillness, and the courage it takes to find space in an overwhelming world.
The song arrives as both a musical statement and an act of permission. “Inhale the fear, exhale the pain / The only door that still remains / Is deep inside a quiet space / Where I can breathe and find my place,” Vanessa sings in the opening lines, establishing at once the track’s emotional terrain and its central invitation: to turn toward discomfort rather than away from it. Her lyrics have always carried what admirers describe as a therapeutic quality, and “Breathe In Breathe Out” distils that gift into something urgent and immediate – the kind of song that feels like it was written specifically for the moment you needed it most.
Vanessa’s writing on the track is unflinching in its honesty. “The race goes on I can’t keep pace / They call it life I call it chase,” she reflects, before arriving at the song’s galvanising core: “Breathe in the ache / Breathe out the sin / The only way out / Is deeper in.” It is a lyrical turn of genuine force – reframing the instinct to escape as an invitation to descend, to trust the interior landscape rather than flee it. The daughter of a chansonnier who grew up filling notebooks with poems before she ever called herself a songwriter, Vanessa brings that lifelong intimacy with language to every line.
For Larose, the track presented a compositional challenge that suited his instincts perfectly: building a soundscape capacious enough to hold Vanessa’s emotional range while retaining the progressive architecture and guitar-driven depth that have defined his eight-album catalogue. Trained at the Chicoutimi Conservatory and recognised by Guitar World in the early 1990s, Larose has long been drawn to music that rewards patient listening. The multi-layered production of “Breathe In Breathe Out,” recorded and mixed at his state-of-the-art Le Studio Septentrio in Saguenay, is no exception – it breathes with the song, expanding and contracting alongside Vanessa’s vocal, as though the music itself is practising what the lyrics preach.
The single is the second to be drawn from The Solivagant Tales – a title Larose chose to reflect his long-held sense of occupying an unusual position in the Canadian and Québec music landscape: prolific, distinctive, and deliberately his own. The album, co-written almost entirely by Larose and Vanessa, represents the full flowering of a creative relationship that began more than two decades ago, when Vanessa was his student.
“At 15, she delivered a rendition of The Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’ in front of a packed audience,” Larose has recalled, “and I was completely floored.” That early astonishment has matured into one of the most compelling partnerships in contemporary Québec rock.
Vanessa’s own path to this moment has been as unconventional as it is inspiring. She spent years as a backing vocalist and performer across various projects, worked as a counsellor at a drug addiction treatment centre, and at 31 made the bold decision to enrol at the École nationale de la chanson – presenting her original compositions that same year on the stage of the Festival de la Chanson de Saint-Ambroise. Her short bio puts it well: “the road may be winding – but don’t worry… she’s used to crossing the lines.” “Breathe In Breathe Out” is, in many ways, the most nakedly personal expression of that resilience to date.
‘The Solivagant Tales’ features the duo’s cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” – a song both artists feel carries renewed and urgent relevance – as well as a bonus track, Bob Dylan’s “Down in the Flood,” which Larose describes as concluding the album “in a fun yet darker mood.” Together, these choices signal a project alive to history, to the weight of the present moment, and to the enduring power of a song to say what ordinary language cannot.
Hi, guys! Good to see you again! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
Martin Larose: Hi there! Takes for taking the time. Much appreciated! I’m a guitarist, recording studio owner, and record producer based in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada. I’ve been playing music since the age of six (I was born in 1966… I’ll let you do the math) and have been writing and producing independently for as long as I can remember.
My influences span a wide range, from expressive acoustic players like Michael Hedges, Chris Whitley, and Steve Howe to guitar virtuosos such as Van Halen and Greg Howe. Above all, though, songwriting remains central to my work. I’ve been deeply shaped by artists like The Beatles, Yes, The Who, U2, as well as jazz, traditional music, and everything in between.
As a record producer, my musical taste is broad and ever-expanding. I approach each album I create as a painting—something to be experienced slowly and deliberately. I’m not driven by mass appeal, especially in today’s landscape.
“Breathe In Breathe Out” feels deeply introspective. What was the first moment or feeling that sparked the musical direction for this track?
Martin Larose: This is where the magic happens between Anaïs Vanessa and me. Despite the generational gap between us, our perspectives on the current state of the world are very much aligned.
Musically, I wanted to keep things a bit simpler and more direct, so the listener could focus more on the lyrics. That said, there’s still plenty of intricate detail in there—it just leans a little more toward a pop sensibility, if you will. As for the lyrics, I’ll let Anais Vanessa explain their premise.
Anais Vanessa: The first emotion I personally felt when I heard the music Martin had composed was unease—a sense of anticipation, like something was about to happen. The opening chords lead you into something almost joyful at first, but that feeling quickly drops away as the piece unfolds. I started to feel doubt… the same feeling you get when something isn’t quite right, but you can’t put your finger on it. It’s really an internal battle—one you fight alone.
That feeling led me to revisit a text I had started writing shortly before we began the project. Just a few lines that would eventually shape the lyrics of the song. I remember thinking: okay… breathe in, breathe out… where is this text going? *Inhale the fear, exhale the pain.* And one phrase kept coming back to me over and over again: the only way to make it out alive in this world is to work on yourself first—to look within… (that solitary battle). That’s really what it all comes down to.
You built the soundscape to match Anaïs Vanessa’s emotional range. How did you translate something as internal as anxiety into something musical and physical?
Martin Larose: As I mentioned earlier, we pretty much see the world the same way. Anaïs became the perfect voice to translate what I had in mind musically.
With that in mind, I made a conscious decision to give her the space to express herself, without interfering too much in her lyrics. Aside from a few tweaks here and there, she essentially had carte blanche—I trusted her and understood what she wanted to say.
We actually spent more time discussing ideas before pre-production than we did focusing on the lyrics themselves.
More importantly, I feel it’s now my duty to ensure that the younger generation can take its place culturally and politically. It’s probably the old teacher in me that refuses to step aside—I want to help make the world a better place for those who come after me.
This is Anaïs’s moment—it’s her voice, her cry.
You have a long history of progressive, politically charged work. What drew you toward a more inward, emotional focus on this record?
Martin Larose: The short answer is a sense of urgency, which I think many people around the world are feeling right now. There are a lot of shifting political currents that are in conflict. We obviously feel it through what’s happening in the United States, but also here in Canada…and I’m genuinely worried.
There’s that recurring theme from Billy Bragg that says, in essence, that silence equals complicity. That resonates deeply with both Anaïs Vanessa and me. My age is also a factor—I feel, in a way, like I’m handing over the torch, although I still have plenty of music left in me. But now is the moment to speak out! The title of the album is also a strong statement. It refers to a segment of the population—one that Anaïs Vanessa and I feel we are part of—that is increasingly being left aside. That, in a way, is the indie artist manifesto right there.
You first worked with Anaïs when she was your student. What has it been like to evolve into creative equals after more than two decades?
Martin Larose: To tell you the truth, it felt quite liberating. I’ve collaborated with several artists over the course of my career, both as an artist and as a producer, but this time felt different. It wasn’t a question of one person being a voice for the other, but rather of two equal partners working toward the same goal.
Nothing was forced—it all felt natural.
Anais Vanessa: Martin gave me my very first studio experiences. I loved it so much that I went on to study music, sound, and recording. Over the years, I feel like I built myself up from that initial “push” he gave me to keep going in music. We worked on several small projects together here and there, but it had been quite a while since we last collaborated when he told me about his album.
I think it was while talking and working on the first song, Free, that we realized we were exactly where we needed to be, at the same time, for it to work. It clicked right away, and everything felt so natural after that. I find it incredible to be part of this project with my former high school teacher! I realize now that he’s believed in me from the very beginning, and I feel truly fortunate.