Patrick Bernard

Patrick Bernard (formerly Patrick Bernhardt) is a Canadian singer-songwriter born on 2 February 1952 in Algiers, who first came to attention with the album Atlantis Angelis in 1989. He has lived in Normandy and Quebec and travelled widely. He left Algeria for France in his youth, lived in London and India, and now lives and performs mainly in Quebec. He has published four books on the power of music, spirituality and the sacred. He also leads workshops on Reharmonising the Chakras through Mantras and Sound.

In 1973, a first mystical crisis led him to follow the ideal of Saint Francis of Assisi. Without belonging to any religious order, he visited Lourdes and Europe's esoteric high places. In 1974, he studied the ancient Vedic texts.

In 1976, he received initiation into mantra yoga, then practised bhakti yoga full time and produced several albums inspired by the Bhagavad-Gita.

Thus were born the albums Montre-moi ton Visage (Paris, 1978), Adventure of King Ram (London, 1978), Night and Day Dream (London, 1979), La Belle Histoire de l’enfant qui possède tout, a children’s record made with Georges Moustaki (Paris, 1979), Les Îles Célestes (Paris, 1980) and Exil, which he produced in Montreal in 1981.

The album Exil features Claude Laplante on guitar, Nirantara Dasa on bass, Michel Pepin and Pat Martel on drums (who would eventually reappear with the Quebec band Offenbach), and Brigitte Pellerin on backing vocals, while Patrick himself plays acoustic guitar, keyboards and synthesisers, Mellotron and sitar, and also takes on bass on three songs. The album was produced and recorded in Montreal, and its atmosphere is gentle and highly lyrical, with symphonic keyboards and ethnic accents. Several songs feature sitar and flute, whose sounds were reproduced on synthesiser, moving towards a raga rock setting, and the vocals are accomplished.

In 1984, he enjoyed success with Romantique Machine, a synth-pop/new wave album released on RCA.

A second mystical crisis led him to leave the show-business world to join a monastery on the banks of the Ganges in Bengal. From then on, he dedicated his art to the meditation of mantras made up of names of “the Absolute, God, the Supreme Being”, which set the tone for his second career, with the album Atlantis Angelis released in 1989. On the inner sleeve, he invites listeners to form a network of exchange with him around the deep listening of his music, and expresses his wish to exchange letters on themes such as visions, intuitions, beings of light, telepathy, initiatory dreams, astral travels, etc.

His music is then inspired by sacred chants and prayers drawn from the great mystical revelations: Christian, Jewish, Sufi, Vedic, etc.