With mirador, Jean-Michel Blais opens a window onto the landscapes of memory, imagination and wonder. The post-classical piano icon’s fourth solo studio album takes its title from the Latin mirari — “to marvel” — and transforms the story of a suburban childhood into a poetic journey through sound.

Set for release on 25 September, mirador draws on Blais’s memories of growing up queer with Tourette’s, finding escape and possibility in a basement filled with everyday objects: an organ, VHS tapes, encyclopedias. These modest surroundings become gateways to distant cultures, inner worlds and expansive dreams — a “stationary world tour” shaped by curiosity, longing and discovery.

Written for choir, Andean instruments, strings and piano, the album moves between intimacy and vastness, turning personal history into a richly textured musical landscape. It is also a tribute to Blais’s parents and the musical world they helped create around him, as well as to the absences and limitations that sparked his ambition.

For the visual world of mirador, Blais reunites with filmmaker Adrian Villagomez, his collaborator on the award-winning video for passepied. Together, they have created the album artwork, visualisers and a longform film that brings several tracks into one immersive performance space.

Both tender and cinematic, mirador invites listeners to see the ordinary anew — as a place of marvel, transformation and limitless imagination.

Tracklist
1. muses
2. ulysse
3. pavane
4. carnavalito
5. mirador
6. quwi
7. granada
8. kyrie
9. laulasmaa
10. silhouettes
11. querelle
12. la chambre des possibles