“I love finding bridges between languages”

After three albums co-produced with her companion David Donatien, Yael Naim embarked entirely on her own in the production of Night Songs, released during confinement. To complete this process, she has just published Live solo in Paris, a unique performance recorded in the spring at the Saint-Eustache Church in Paris. His songs are completely revisited and there are even three unreleased songs that do not appear on any other album: I wish, Expect and leave it there. Alone with a piano or a guitar and a few effects, the singer familiarizes herself with angels through sublime vocal harmonies. 15 titles where every moment is a moment of grace. Yael Naim answered our questions.

franceinfo culture: Is this your first live album?

Yael Naim : Yes. I’ve never been a fan of hearing my own live. It’s difficult to be in the present moment, to let go, and at the same time in the precision that we seek for a record. The first time I felt I could have released a live performance was when I was with a choir at the Philharmonie. The concert exists in video form but it has not been released. And for this time it was not planned to release a live album, but hearing the results I was proud of what happened that night and I realized that since the album Night Songs couldn’t go on tour (the album was released during the epidemic – editor’s note), this live album is going to be a great way to spin it. And I’m very happy to release this live album which allows me to turn the page on this project Night Songs which is very important to me.

How important was it?

It was a turning point for me, it took me three years to do it. Now I can’t verbalize it anymore. In fact, when I was a child, I liked many composers like Mozart and I was shocked to see that there had been few known female composers. There was always a man behind, or a tragic end. Women have never been able to have full autonomy, free creativity and a happy family life simultaneously. I had the chance to meet a musician and producer who is also my lover, David Donatien with whom we co-produced my three albums. I said to myself that before I was 40 I had done all my construction with a man behind it and I needed to prove to myself that I could be independent and lead an idea from A to Z. Producing and carrying out a project, getting into this meditation, without having a second opinion. Kind of like a dive. This album Night Songs came from this need: to go all the way with my own universe.

This “dive”, we feel it in this live. There is a side without a net to being alone on stage

Yes that’s exactly it. The fact of not having the usual moments like clapping or singing “happy songs”… I wanted to get rid of all these stage effects, which are great, and see if we could have a deep conversation in front of people by revealing oneself completely. And it was nice to discover that there is not necessarily a need for artifice. The relief can come in many different ways and in particular by feeling this link with the public.

Did the setting of the Sainte-Eustache church give a sacred dimension to your music?

Above all, it gives a unique dimension to this moment. We are not on tour doing the umpteenth concert in the umpteenth identical room. Of course I also like rooms with good sound, but here we are in a place steeped in history. Mozart buried his mother there. This story meets ours and this moment that only happens once. I like atypical places in general and at the base Night Songs was to tour in churches or museums with a classical choir. This Sainte-Eustache church was really the perfect place to record this live.

Alone on stage, but not totally. Was it a wish to have other presences by your side?

For Parisian concerts, there are often carte blanche. It makes you want to have a unique moment that goes beyond the way of interpreting the songs. And then I wanted to meet people. My brother Eyal sings Daddy on the album, I wanted to invite him live.

watching you I had already done it once with Anaiis, an artist whom I adore and who is a very close friend. It did me good to hear people sing these songs differently than me.

Celia Kameni is an artist I discovered two years ago, and I am in the process of producing and composing her project with her. She’s a great artist, I was happy to have her with me that night. And more to sing lonely which has known so many versions and so intense years. It’s the first piece I composed when I arrived in France.

We feel that you use your voice as an instrument in its own right

Both on the album and on the live, I wanted to do the maximum with the minimum, therefore with the constraint of being alone. So I loop the vocals and adding different types of reverb, it allows me to create textures that look like synth pads. Added to this is a second microphone with more reverberation and therefore a different sound. The idea was to take the place of the choirs.

Is this the box you can see above the keyboard?

I also have the possibility to loop the piano with also synthesizer type sounds and to be able to pass it in an effect which drops by an octave. Everything is played live, there is no prepared sound. The important thing for me was to improvise. After three times two years of touring, I realized that after five concerts we get bored repeating ourselves, replaying the same songs in the same way. And although I come from a culture of classical music, I also come from a culture of jazz and this abandonment is necessary. It’s like in relationships: letting go of the present moment allows you to reach another emotional dimension. This is where I get the chills, where you feel that something unique is happening today. And that’s what makes you want to do 100 concerts, otherwise it’s after-sales service for me. So I needed to have as many tools as possible for improvisation. Including the curls, I can do something different every night.

There are two songs on the guitar, The Sun and Expect. Do you compose more on the piano or on the guitar?

I compose on both. I’m more keyboard by my training, but I love the guitar too. It brings intimacy. I like to play the pieces on the instrument with which they were composed. The Sun and Expect were composed on guitar, to be performed on guitar.

You were born in Paris, you lived your childhood in Israel. night songs is the first album where we hear you sing in French, except for covers like Brel’s with other artists. Was it natural for you to write in English first?

Indeed there had only been bits of words such as for example “The game is over for my heart” on the second album. Even though I was raised in Israel, the music I listened to was Anglo-Saxon: Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, the Beatles, Nick Drake… so naturally I wrote in English. I had a rejection at the beginning of Hebrew because I had the impression that I came from a small country and I dreamed of getting out of that, this context which locked me up, which isolated me. For me it made no sense to write in Hebrew as long as I lived in Israel. When I moved to Paris, after four years I felt homesick, I missed everything, I needed to keep some form of bond. And when I finally decided to stay and live in Paris and my Israeli boyfriend had left me, it’s as if all of a sudden I needed something of my bond to remain. with Israel through music. At first it was an album that wasn’t even supposed to be released, it had to remain an intimate thing and it’s strange that it was this album that had the most success. A nice story: I leave home, I recreate a link and this thing is propelled all over the world.

At first I spoke very basic French. I didn’t understand the jokes… I really took a long time to learn the third degree which is permanent in France! (laughs) Getting into the language, starting to read, etc. And it’s only recently that I started to assume my own French. These are not politically correct words. “Holes” or “crumbs” aren’t pretty words, but sometimes I get obsessed with a word.

In crumbsthere are even rhymes between English and French.

Yes. My texts are the same, it’s a mix of English and French. Many people who are multicultural develop this mixed language. My brain works like that now and I would like to write “mixed” songs more and more. Perhaps there will be future generations that will be mixed and multicultural and that the language will evolve, as it has always done elsewhere. “You give me crumbs Cause it’s not me yet”… Finding bridges between languages, I love it. I have the impression that languages ​​are created organically. For example, Creole was created because of a clash between two cultures. And crossbreeding in music is the same.

Yael Naim – “Live Solo in Paris” was released on June 24 (Morelephant records)

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