Emilie Simon

Laurine Pilarski hails from Lille and when she’s not too busy writing screen plays and scripts for the court-métrage “Craquer pour elle” she’s writing, composing and singing delightfully intimate folk-tinged pop-songs in both French and English.

With an EP promised ‘when it’s ready’, she’s released a handful of tracks on Bandcamp that highlight not only her honey-dripped vocals, but also her multi-lingual song-writing and composition skills. All these songs are incredibly soothing, wistful and intimate. Perhaps this is what her bio means when it suggests that …her sorrows, they’re yours. Her songs, they’re talking about you…? The sweetness of her voice on these tracks is perfectly matched by Romain Parmentier’s acoustic guitar. There’s an overwhelming tranquillity to her sound that is just perfect for walking solitary on a deserted beach as the waves gently crash ashore.

Laurine lists amongst her musical influences Emilie Simon – with whom she sounds at times uncannily similar – and interestingly the tormented geniuses that were Nick Drake and the American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, which is discernible on the totally beguiling “Just friends”, performed in her whispering English.

But it’s the achingly beautiful “La fille à l’arrière des berlines” that first grabbed my attention, and as we tend to like ‘les filles qui chantent en français’ here, this is the track that I’ve selected for your listening pleasure…

Took us a while to dig the new Emilie Simon album (or the new Jeanne Cherhal, for that matter), but guestposter David really fell for ‘Mue’:

Well, I won’t do that again. I’ve been waiting for over a month for a delivery “shipped all together”, waiting for Chloe Lacasse’s new CD to be released. Chloe’s new CD has some good songs (more from Steve soon, I understand), but in the meantime I missed out on Emilie Simon’s new album, “Mue”. No longer. My usual criteria for writing about a CD is if I listen to it through to the end without feeling like switching to something else. Emilie’s new one I listened through, and then through again.

I well remember the disappointment years ago when Emilie drifted away from French song. Her CD “Franky Knight” had a share of French songs, but to me it lacked the edge Emilie had before. “Mue”, however, rings sharp and clear, from first to last note. Emilie’s voice on her various CD’s has always been one of “sit up and take notice”, with an edge making even soft songs somehow more interesting, capturing and holding attention. In this one, Emilie brings back memories of “Vegetal”, and with the title “Mue” (molting) suggesting she’s changing her feathers, perhaps she’s back for a while singing chanson francaise.

The album starts out very strong with “Paris j’ai pris perpète”, a favorite. I particularly like “Encre”, a bit reminiscent in tone of Daphné at her best (think “Bleu Venise”, not her more recent CD of softer tone lullabies, “Fauve”, pleasant but I can’t stay awake), enough so that I readily forgave the next song, one of two in English. Emilie’s songwriting is varied – each song stands on its own, without ready comparison one to another. Here’s a video of another favorite, “Quand vient le jour”:

I wish “Wicked Games”, the final song on the CD and a cover, was also in French. But if instead you choose to think of the CD as ending with “Les amoureux de minuit”, it’s fitting enough.

Beautiful and interesting. Thanks, Emilie.