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Rejuvenating, primordial, an existential explosion for your senses, a cold shower always invites an audible response, a “Hallelujah” for those on a journey with god. If music is your celestial guide, then Montreal-based newcomer Christian Sean is the polar bear plunge your consciousness needs, and for a debut album, Hallelujah Showers is revelatory. The imaginative layering of this record is pure grace, one moment hints of Peter Gabriel, the next Prince, all with a contemporary vibrance that has your mind bracing for sounds both gospel and industrial adjacent. In short, this is a stunning early work for a promising artist and made us immediately get on the phone to dial up some godlike queries. See and feel the awakening below.

OnesToWatch: First things first, I always like to ask artists this because I think it's revealing in terms of their purpose and their compass. Why are you an artist?

Christian Sean: That's a great question. I think it's something that you are fundamentally. There's a certain sensitivity in your being and in the way that kind of grip that reality has on you. And what makes you an artist is really your love for art. It's kind of that simple. You fall in love with these works of art, music, film, and that love is so all-encompassing that you can't help but want to devote your life to it. Usually, it happens at a pretty formative age, too. So yeah, I just love art so much, so much that I want to be an artist. I love it. 

So are artists born for you or are they created?

I think it's a bit of both. I think it's a great mystery that kind of plays itself throughout the lifetime. Like there are many times when you feel very confident in yourself as an artist, very self-assured, very dead on that there's no other way, no other path for you but this path. And then other times you hit walls and economic circumstances and things that sort of make you reconsider, well, am I really destined to do this? Is this really who I am or was I just delusional? But I think time and time again, art keeps surprising you if you keep on that path. If you stay devoted, then your love for it deepens. It becomes more rewarding and more and more gratifying, you know. You kind of come to that realization again and again, through doubt.

I love that. Also, I feel like the collision of delusion and art is where so much good stuff happens. 

Oh, yeah, because then you have to set out on a limb, you know. 

It's a form of vulnerability for many reasons. Seeing these limited versions of your imagery and aesthetics, was anything else a creative expression for you or was it always music? 

I wish. Music is really where I express myself with the most ease. I’m not so great at other art forms. I have friends that are really great and surround myself with people that I trust. But I don't have that kind of spatial intelligence. People who can just see something and draw it are amazing. Like, I still draw the same way I drew when I was seven years old. I haven't evolved. 

How do you normally create your music? Do you start with an idea, concept, melody, top line, or combination of all the things? 

Yeah, I mean, every song is different. You start with one piece and then you develop on that. Sometimes I'll be messing around with an instrumental and that'll conjure up a top line. Sometimes it'll be a more traditional songwriting process, where I really try to work the song out on either guitar or piano and then kind of throw it in the computer and turn it on its head. It never starts the same way for me. And I think for most artists too, because then you'd get bored, you know? If you do the same things in the same order, then you'll probably end up with the same kind of results.

Which some people enjoy, but I'm sensing you don't enjoy that. 

No, I mean, you need some consistency, or else you never get anything done. But, whenever you feel, in my experience, whenever you feel that you've unlocked the key or think like, “This is going to be my method,” right? “Going forward, this is it, I found it.” And you try it the next week, it's just, it's not there. The juice isn't there and it's not yielding what it was yielding last week so you gotta find another way. It's like, it's always a mystery. 

I've started asking this question because I feel like it's so pertinent. What's your take on AI production tools, using algorithmic assists in creating music? Do you feel like that's enabling? Does it allow you to do more? Is it compromising the delusion of being a great artist? 

That's a great question. Like all technology, I don't think the problem is necessarily technology. I think it depends on how much of yourself you can infuse in that, you know. We don't turn to art to witness “technically perfect,” you know, objects or whatever. We are drawn to it because of the humanity that's in it and because of the fact that a human being had to overcome, you know, lethargy and time and space and experience to do this thing, transcending our own limitations. I think that's what's moving about it. So as long as there's that element in the art, I don't see why AI would be encumbered. Purely AI-generated art, I've never seen anything that's been really potent for me, hasn't really done the trick. And I haven't really incorporated it into my workflow yet. I mean, some plugins use some AI algorithms that are pretty helpful, but it has to move you as an artist, right? So, if you make something that ends up moving you, you know, truly, then I don't see what the problem is. 

You're so hopeful, and introspective. Diving into your recent releases and your upcoming release. On a personal note, I absolutely loved your music. It's a little hard to place, you know, where it's coming from. I think maybe that's part of the fun, your music has a bit of a treasure trove value to it. I’d love to know, when you're creating, are you thinking of your consumer in mind? Do you have the audience at the top of your mind when you're creating, or is it more tapping into your “delusional creative?”

Yeah, I mean anyone who says they're not thinking about an audience at all is kind of full of shit, you know. It's just about having trust in the audience and knowing that if this is really moving to me, you know, then it has to be of value to someone. It sounds kind of cliche, but I think all of us, with music or whatever field you're in, kind of oscillate between trying to make things that you think people would like and being so engrossed in it that you just know people are really going to dig this. And then by the end of it, it just doesn't have that ring, you know, you can't, you have to leave it on the cutting board because it just doesn't feel like it's a part of you. And then for some reason, other ideas keep recurring and recurring, and even if at the onset of the process you feel that they might not have any commercial value, you have to see it through. So I guess, long story short, I do think of the audience. I don't know who that audience is, but I trust that if I like it, then yeah, there's going to be people out there that like it, you know? 

I love that. I hear that you have a sort of non-traditional upbringing. I imagine that lends itself to your creation process, right? You've been to a lot of places, you've experienced things. Where did the title for the album, Hallelujah Showers, come from? And also as a Montrealer, there's so much reference to Leonard Cohen, I'm curious if that had anything to do with it. 

Oh, wow, I hadn’t made the connection. So my family, they were in this religious organization, they would often live communally and in houses sometimes up to 50 people in the same house. Obviously, there wasn't hot water, so people had to take cold showers and they called them hallelujah showers. I never experienced it myself, but those words always stuck with me. And it's weird, as the album kept progressing, there was no really clear theme at the onset of it, but towards the end, I started realizing that all these water themes kept coming up in the lyrics. That title just felt right. And yeah, there's a bit of a liturgical component too. But yeah, it's just another way of saying cold water. 

That's totally fair. Do you feel like you can have religion without music? 

Mmm, I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I think both of those things are so fundamentally human: the religious impulse to give ourselves to something greater than ourselves, and then to music. I think it's all tied together, at least it is for me. I don't prescribe to any denomination, but I don't see how they could ever be kept apart. That's a great question. 

When you're writing or listening to your music, do you feel a sort of trance-like call to something larger than yourself? 

Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, not always. You can't... It's not something that you can really call on demand, right? You know, some days, some weeks, you're just toiling and you're just putting in the work, like hammering nails and bolts. But sometimes things come together in a way, where that part of your psyche really resonates, and that's when I know that I’m gonna have to keep this song with me and have to keep working on it and you know see it through. Because I start so many songs and then scrap so many of them you know but those that yeah that that kind of put me in that state, that's how I measure the songs that are worth keeping. 

You also answered another question, which is regarding song selection. When putting together a project, are you a voluminous songwriter? Do you have so many songs that it's hard to edit, or are the ones on the project just the ones that were finished? 

I think I'm more of the second class. I know some people belong to the school of like, you write 50 songs and you keep 20. I wish I could do that. But since I do a lot of the technical work as well, the producing and the recording, a lot of those things require trial and error. It's a long sort of arduous process. I heard this story about Prince – his engineer was saying that he liked to have the same setup in the studio, always, so that he could just pump out songs. Like he wasn't really into experimenting in the studio too much. I thought that was fascinating. I'm a huge Prince fan because I'm the total opposite. I don't like using the same textures on different songs. like it has to be a journey and that takes a while. So you need to commit to a group of songs to do that. 

So that answers the question. This project is basically your best songs of the moment. Are they current? Was this written a while ago? 

Yeah, around the pandemic was when the songs started coming through and they were sort of worked and reworked over a long period of time. Some of them came really quickly and then others were kind of arduously pieced together. 

Yeah, I think most musicians feel that way. By the time the album comes out, it's like this belongs to another era of my life. So if you were instantly to produce an album the day after this one comes out, how different would it be?

It's hard to tell. I mean, you learn so much through the process of making it. You make all these mistakes and by the time it's done, you wish you could go back and correct. So I've learned things about just the technicalities of production and about how to achieve certain sounds I hear. And I think the next project would probably be more collaborative, less solitary. Open it up to more musicians, more producers, you know. Because this album was very much like a solitary thing, kind of like a painter. We're hacking away at this one object. 

As a musician, producer, and recording engineer, which one are you most willing and wanting to collaborate on?

So producing with other people and for other people is something I do. It's how I make a living and it's something I absolutely love. It's so freeing to be given a mandate and it's easier to put your ego aside when you're working in service to someone else's vision. With the songwriting, I've never really let other people in. It always felt really personal. But I feel I would benefit from doing that in the future. 

Love it. Just to put you on the spot, if you had to pick a collaborator, who would it be? Not Prince, because I feel Prince is like a bulletproof answer.

I’d probably work with a producer that's wildly better than I am so I can learn. Someone like a BJ Burton. I've been following his work a lot. He worked a lot with Bonnie Vare, Lo, Charli XCX, he’s really varied. Shawn Everett, who is out in LA as well. He worked with Big Thief and a bunch of other people. Just these sort of left-of-field producers who are also operating on a really high stakes place with big pop stars, I'd like to see how they navigate that. And kind of just relinquish control a bit for it, you know. 

Well, your project's amazing. I hope it lands. It's truly beautiful. You've been generous with your time, but just to sort of contextualize you as a person, you sound very contemplative. So what do you do to relax? How do you put your mind at ease besides music? 

Well, I've been a pretty avid meditator for the past 10 years. wow. That's really helped. And just spending time away from your phone. Like sometimes I'll spend a whole day without looking at it, and I’m like, why do I feel so good? But generally, time and nature as much as I can. 

If we were to join you in Montreal, where is the best place to digest both that city and its amazing culture? 

Man, there's so many places. 

Where would we run into you and strike up a conversation? 

Well, you're likely to find me at Montreal Library, the public library is incredible. We have this amazing public library with a huge selection of vinyl and CDs that you can take out. That's where I sample a lot of stuff actually, so you might find me there in the CD section. And then there’s Mount Royal, which is this mountain in the city that's a very beautiful park. It was designed by the same architect who did Central Park, Stanley Williams. You'd probably find me there walking. And then there's the best vegan sushi place in the world called Sushi Momo on Saint-Denis. If you're in Montreal, check it out. I have many friends who eat meat and they still say it's the best sushi they've ever had. 

Who are your OnesToWatch?

Man, some amazing artists are coming out of Montreal right now. Yves Jarvis is amazing. He makes really unique music, pretty hard to describe. Kaya Hoaks, who is an incredible artist, very hard to define too. He just put out a project last May. Those are my two favorites.