Snow, wilderness and the great Canadian outdoors. This is the setting that Apple has chosen to record its third album. A familiar setting for the singer from the Rhône, who has had a strong link with Quebec for many years, but also a way to take a step back and “avoid doing The Rifts 2 », A repeat of her previous album, crowned Album revelation in February 2020 at the Victoires de la Musique, before earning her the title of female artist of the year in 2021. From her place of recording, she evokes for the first time with 20 minutes this new creative process, which saw the light of day after a year disrupted by the health crisis.
Why did you choose Canada to record this new album?
I came back to Canada – the country where I have spent the most time after France in years – because I knew I was going to be able to step back here more easily. I wanted to do it differently, because I think it’s quite tempting, when we made an album that people listened to and which had – on my scale – enormous influence, to want to return to the same patterns than the ones I used.
So I arrived in the fall to record with musicians from Quebec and a 90% Quebec team and we did exactly what I wanted: record a lot of songs in different studios, sometimes in the forest, sometimes in Montreal. We are a little near the end but it is not over yet.
Was this natural environment a source of inspiration?
In a very concrete way, there are in Canada a lot more wild nature or places very little inhabited by humans and therefore they are not at all the same sensations and the same occupation of space as in France or even in Europe. One of the studios was completely isolated in the forest. I don’t plan to be completely isolated like this for long periods of time, but I need to alternate between times in the city and times in a more natural environment.
I have a special relationship with nature. What is quite paradoxical is that I make fewer references to it in the next album than in the Flaws. But I think being literally out in the wild to record this one meant that I didn’t have to talk about it, because I was living it.
What can you tell us about the new album themes?
I could talk about it more easily in 4-5 months when it is finished. All I can say today is that I tried not to do The Rifts 2. So it’s very different, in any case, in my opinion and in my perception of things: they are not the same themes and I think that will speak less of me. Or it’s going to talk about me – because it’s still my songs that I wrote and composed from A to Z – but through other stories because it’s still four years that have passed since the writing of the Flaws…
How did the composition go?
As I don’t really have a manager and I produce this album myself, I have a lot more administrative and organizational work to do in my project for two years than before. So I try to organize moments to compose. But there are times when I need to work on a song and stop everything else to devote myself to it. In fact, I compose a little all the time, it’s never painful, it’s always hyper-liberating.
Only three to four months after the release of Flaws, I was already composing new songs. It’s something I do on a regular basis and really need it in life. Between the end of 2019 and two months ago, I wrote a lot of songs and then I took the ones that seemed to me to be the truest, my favorites, the most interesting and those that spoke to me the most in the moment. There, I almost finished the album and I already want to write! It’s something that never really stops. I think it’s a chance. There are times when I’m less inspired than others, but it never lasts long.
You just did a collaboration with Pinterest, is it a network that you use in your creative process?
Yes, I accepted this partnership with Pinterest because it is a tool that I find wonderful and that I have used a lot on a daily basis for more than 5 years, not so much for the composition as for my work on the visuals. I often have ideas for my clips when I fall asleep, in my dreams. I write everything down on my phone in a half-sleep and the next day it’s a bit magical: I type keywords into Pinterest and each time I find ideas that go much further than I had imagined. . I have billions of mood-boards which for the most part are secret because I use them to prepare shoots or clips. But I have a few public mood boards that I made at the very beginning of my use of Pintesrest with musical instruments, astrology or vegan cooking stuff …
At the end of your three Olympias which ended your summer tour, you had published a rather moved message of thanks to your audience. What did it mean to you after this very difficult year?
My album was released three months before the first confinement and I spent the whole of last winter, from the end of 2020 to May 2021 in total uncertainty about the possibility of doing concerts. It was lags on cancellations and disappointments. It was a hyper-sad and dark period for the performing arts. We learned that we were going to be able to resume concerts, three weeks before the first date… It was crazy!
There were twelve of us in a tour bus for three months until September. It was exhausting, but super happy. I just remember feeling like I was with lots of friends – whether it was the team or the audience – and going from town to town in a house on the wheel and finding some semblance of normal life. . Finishing with three Olympias – booked a year and a half before – in front of full halls, standing, without a mask with a feeling of normalcy, it was magical. Admittedly, going from zero to 4-5 concerts per week was abused but I absolutely do not regret! Afterwards, I had a project between the dates to take my license and that did not work. It was a little too much, so I gave up …
Did you find a different way to maintain this bond with your audience during this period, thanks to social networks in particular?
Covid or not, I am quite connected and very connected with people. I use Instagram a lot. During the first lockdown, I remember being very active at first and posting a lot of content with the idea that it was kind of my role to entertain people. But quickly it got tiring I told myself that the world was on a break and that I too could take breaks at times. I did a live, posted a lot of poetry or funny moments related to everyday life. But since September I have been much less active on the networks because it is quite time consuming. And I want to go there when I want to and when I’m there I want to be really happy to connect with people. I don’t want to feel obligated to make my existence meaningful.
We are approaching the end of the year, what is your assessment of this year 2021?
I had a lot more time for myself than I expected and learned a lot from this situation. But it hasn’t been easy all the time. I remember having great moments of loneliness and sadness related to the fact that my album would never have the life I had planned for it. In the end, I still saw more light in 2021, than in 2020, because the summer tour was a kind of oasis in chaos. She gave me a breath that I really needed. And since May, I have had the chance to really get back to work, with new perspectives and not to think too much about the Covid or at least to suffer from it less.
What can we wish you for 2022?
For 2022, I’m not sure because right now it looks like total chaos! But personally I have the prospect of releasing another album, which is great fun. I also have a guitar-voice tour in several European capitals in April and May. It will be an opportunity to play maybe a few new songs and quietly reconnect to the live in a super intimate way and with very little frills and production. I also have a lot of current projects: I composed and sang the credits of the animated film Princess Dragon which has just been released at the cinema and I am working on other music for animated films, for children and for adults next year.