It’s the return of a French pop child prodigy: eight years later Moltingsinger-songwriter Émilie Simon returns with Polarisa new album of original songs, concept and bilingual, of which she premiered a few tracks on March 3 at Gesù, on the bill for Montréal en Lumière. The duty took advantage of her presence to hear news from the musician who, twenty years earlier, demonstrated with her first album that French song was indeed soluble in electronic music.
Émilie Simon’s return to a Montreal stage was first justified by the tour ES who has taken him around Europe for over a year. EStitle of the album with which she revisits the songs of her smashing debut in 2002.
“It’s true that what I did then was different from what we heard,” she confirms. Even if I wasn’t looking to make an avant-garde album, I was a bit like a UFO, at a crossroads: I felt that I was making French song, but not purely. There were elements of trip-hop, but not quite. My music was electronic, but not really either. At the time, it seemed obvious to me to create like that. » And yet, she was one of the first to attract French song to modern electronic music. “I’m happy to see so many women doing it today and wearing the producer-director hat since at the time, there were only men making electronic music. »
Simon was looking to highlight the 20the anniversary of this landmark album: “If I had written these songs today, how would they have been presented, imagined, produced, in this different era, with new technological means? » With different synth tones, it jumps out at the ears. And with such a different singer: her interpretation, it should be noted, seems more assertive than at the time when Simon used her voice “as an instrument among others. She was more discreet then — I’m still discreet, but I think I take my place differently. My personality has changed enormously, too — well, my DNA, my soul remains the same, but life has taken care of making me evolve. »
In twenty years, Émilie Simon has lived in the United States and inhabited the world of cinema by signing film soundtracks — starting with that of the Oscar-winning documentary The emperor’s walk (2005), signed Luc Jacquet. “I think I grew up dreaming of film music,” says Émilie, specifying that The emperor’s walk came to her after the director discovered her first album. “This marriage between music and image has always fascinated me, but I had never taken steps to get involved in it. »
However, after twenty years in the profession, Émilie Simon now merges the musical and cinematographic worlds in her projects: last October, she played the leading role (that of the vampire Lily) in her short film Phoenix serving at the same time as an ambitious video clip for the six songs from the mini-album of the same name. ” You liked it ? », she asks us. Ah yes: we saw a tribute to the cinema, and to the music, of the cult director-composer John Carpenter, in the color of the images as much as in those of his vintage 1980 synthesizers. “I see the link, which I had not not consciously done! “, she replies.
Polaris will therefore be listened to as the continuation of Phoenix, Lily’s story which continues on the wings of a flying tiger. “When I left, there was enormous progress in my career: until Phoenix, my albums had no story, no narrative framework, they were always more conceptual. However, with Phoenix and its texts in Alexandrian, I wanted to tell one, which influenced the creation of Polaris », an album that took her ten years to complete. “I surrendered realize that I was very inspired by symbols – this image of the winged tiger means a lot of things to me – and its presence, like that of the cosmos in the album, immediately projects the listener into a universe. »
This marriage between music and image has always fascinated me, but I had never taken steps to get involved in it.
We will look for an allegory, a way of disguising palpable and experienced emotions, but which ones? “I was asked this question: how much personal experience is in this album? There are, of course, these experiences are the organic material that inspires me to compose a melody, to write an entire album. But the separation, between personal experience and the fantastic story, happens by itself: rather than saying things in a realistic and down-to-earth way, using these symbols gives form to the subject, to my feelings. The album is about the need to fight our inner demons by praying for relief. Flying away on the back of a tiger speaks more than the story behind it which inspires the song. »
“For me, each new album is an inner exploration, a journey,” confirms Émilie Simon. An opportunity to define myself with new codes, what I am today. The possibility, too, of completely freeing myself from what ties me to the past. In any case, that’s what I like to do, I like to have the impression of making albums that are very different from each other to measure my progress. »
Polaris by Émilie Simon was published on the Végétal label.