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Keren Ann
Such Sweet Melancholy
Paris
03/08/2000 -
With her pale, anaemic voice and ivory pallor, straight black hair hanging across a soulful, oval face, Keren Ann strikes an unusual figure on the French music scene. The 25-year-old, who divides her time between homes in New York and Paris, writes songs tinged with melancholy and spleen which are part Leonard Cohen, part Joni Mitchell. Given her Romantic heroine looks and her wistful compositions, Keren Ann is not exactly the stuff of which modern divas are made. These days success comes in the form of "worked-out" muscular voices (à la Lara Fabian) and camera-friendly smiles (à la Céline Dion). Alternatively, 21st-century divas burst to stardom after building their careers on the backs of musicals (c.f. Julie Zenatti, Sonia Lacen, Hélène Segara et al).
But somehow Keren Ann has managed to bypass these criteria, emerging on the French music scene with a haunting debut album which burrows slowly beneath the skin and into the soul. Keren Ann's husky-soft vocals weave an intoxicating spell and beautifully-crafted tracks such as Sur le Fil and Dimanche en hiver are guaranteed to linger in the mind long after a first listen. Meanwhile, songs like Peut-Être pack a powerful emotional punch, lovers promising each other the world while teetering on the knife-edge of uncertainty. La Biographie de Luka Philipsen also features an interesting male/female duet, Keren Ann teaming up with Benjamin Biolay on a modern love ballad entitled Décrocher les Etoiles which contains the immortal lines "Laisse les autres parler de toi, le reste est à venir / Laisse les autres parler de moi, ils m'ont pas vu sourire". (Let others say what they like about you, the rest is yet to come/ Let others say what they like about me, they've never seen me smile").
By the time you get to Décrocher les Etoiles, you'll have understood that smiling is not exactly what Keren Ann's debut album is about - so Jardin d'Hiver, a quirky tribute to Henri Salvador will doubtless take you by surprise, transporting older listeners back to childhood memories of Syracuse and Faut rigoler. In short, La Biographie de Luka Philipsen is a glorious oxymoron of an album on which Keren Ann's emotionally-charged vocals tinge moments of happiness with nostalgic yearnings and sweeten passages of melancholy with glimpses of joy. Accompanied by languorous violins, guitar arpeggios, viola and a swooping clarinet, Keren Ann's vocals possess the evocative power of "a flower-patterned dress in the November rain". If you're in the mood for autumnal musing, this is the album for you!
Frédéric Garat
28/02/2011 -
08/06/2007 -
26/11/2004 -
31/10/2003 -
24/05/2002 -
