Pomme still felt like a teenager when she released her first album, titled Roughly. When, two years later, critical and commercial success overwhelmed her after the release of the album Loopholes (2019), “I think I was not quite an adult yet”. By writing the songs of Consolationthe most anticipated album of the French-language musical season, “it’s the first time I’ve looked at life with adult eyes”, tells us the 26-year-old French musician, crowned female artist of the year at the Music victories in 2021.
Consolation. A very simple title, so apropos, which even comes with its own prescription: in the company of the experts of Mycoboutique, rue Saint-Denis, Claire Pommet has designed a “chaga mushrooms & maple milk cap” herbal tea to sip while listening to the album. . Fans who purchase the special edition CD will be able to taste it.
I have [aujourd’hui] found my place as an artist and as a woman, I grew in maturity. And so [dans mes chansons]I talked a lot about my childhood, this need to be comforted that I felt then.
Chaga is believed to have medicinal properties, but no, no hallucinogenic effects. That, to feel it, just listen to the album. Preferably with a good pair of headphones. Consolation abounds with sound details, with these little moments “where you hear things that arise from other parts of the main room” of the Wild studio in Saint-Zénon, where the album was recorded, “accidents which in my opinion [représentent] exactly the way I approach music”.
Apple says it “went through all the colors” during the creation of Consolation : even before feeling the pressure of success after the success of Loopholes“I was already experiencing the stress of not being able to write songs in the context [pandémique] that we lived. When I started writing, I had these ghosts of judgments and expectations that haunted me, which I managed to chase away”.
On the second day of the studio session, Apple had an anxiety attack. “I understood that I was playing my life, that I was making decisions that would define my future. However, I was very well surrounded, in the middle of the forest, with my best friend who was filming me “for a documentary broadcast on France Télé on August 24. “Flavian [Berger] was by my side, lots of Quebec musicians surrounded me. I ended up saying to myself: “Yes, there is pressure, people expect something from me, but what they expect is that I be myself and that I offer them something honest.” I clung to that. »
Honesty was probably his only buoy since anyway, Apple has a voice that does not betray. A timbre so fine that one reads its intentions through it. A voice that does not bluff: what she sings comes directly from the heart, on melodies that lay bare the text, here again very intimate because immersed in the memories of a childhood that left scars, hears her. we in the song In my dreams at the beginning of the album. “I was angry with my parents because I was always sad. I thought I was born into the wrong family…”
French electronic composer Flavien Berger will embrace everything from Apple’s universe, transcending his acoustic pop and folk song with the help of delicate sound effects.
Consolation was beautifully recorded, with Quebec musicians and Quebec engineers. And with the brilliant French electronic composer Flavien Berger as co-producer. He understood everything about the Apple universe, transcending his acoustic pop and folk song using delicate sound effects, even some audacity in terms of production, like this almost house rhythm at the end of Blue. We will of course think of the aesthetics of Bon Iver, while the musician points in the direction of the work of New Yorker Sol Seppy: “Go see her album [I.A.A.Y.A Part One, 2020, édité par Gated]you will understand that I listened to it a lot…”
“Flavien, it was obvious” to support him in the production of his third album, summarizes Claire Pommet, recalling that she had first invited him to collaborate for the first time on the song. blue magicincluded in the “augmented” version of Loopholes.
“We realized that we were at a time in our lives where our paths crossed. […] He wanted me to teach him the guitar, I showed him a chord, which he played over and over in the studio. He also told me that playing on the computer can also mean recording nature sounds and reworking them. It fascinated me, making synthetic music from real sounds. I love weird sounds. »
Which give the impression of a state of semi-consciousness. The musical score of a waking dream, the sound echo of a distant memory, that of the childhood of its author. ” I have [aujourd’hui] found my place as an artist and as a woman, I grew in maturity. And so [dans mes chansons]I talked a lot about my childhood, this need to be comforted that I felt then, that I still have a little now and that we all need collectively” after the traumatic last years that we have just experienced.
The pandemic and all this ugliness brought to the surface at the same time “have called into question the place of artists in society. And me, I just tried to find my place in it by writing songs. It was my consolation. I realized that it was a chance to be able to share my creations and to come to understand the world — and myself through creation”.
The songs are presented in chronological order, starting from his childhood memories. “The album is a huge consolation to me. Introspective, but focused on others, as if I had written letters to people who inspire me. All these people who became subjects of the album taught me something about myself — even addressing these people with “you” allowed me to say even more intimate things than on Loopholes. »
Consolation, “it’s like a word in a drawer in which I can put all these things that I wanted to address” in my songs. Childhood. Friendships. Love — for musician Safia Nolin, with whom she shares her life between Montreal, Paris and Lyon — and “the connections I have with emblematic female figures” such as author Nelly Arcan, to whom she dedicates a poignant song. “All that went into the big house of consolation for me,” said Pomme, inviting us to take a look.