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Keren Ann, a cosmopolitan ‘chanteuse’
New album in English
Paris
08/06/2007 -
Whether she’s singing in French or - as is the case with Keren Ann - English, Keren Ann’s delicious vocals barely rise above a whisper, but their distinctive lightness of touch, coupled with the perfectly-honed production on her new album, transport the listener to imaginary lands infused with elegance and gentle melancholy. Keren Ann’s eponymous album, released just a few weeks ago, confirms her as a major new singer-songwriter talent on the international scene.
RFI Musique hooked up with Keren Ann in Paris, just before she flew off for her current series of concerts in North America, and found a decisive young woman who knows her own mind. When questioned about her approach to songwriting, she explained, "Everyone’s got their own way of working. What happens with me is I get an idea of the ambience, the general atmosphere of the album I want to make. But I don’t know exactly how I’m going to get that, what direction I’m going to take. I don’t know whether I’m going to record the rhythm section or the guitars first - or just jump in and record everything together! One thing’s for sure, and that is that I always start off by recording something in my studio before knowing what I’m going to choose, whether it’ll be guitar/vocals or piano/vocals. It’s only after that that the ideas come."
Functioning in solitary confinement when working on an album, Keren Ann admits that nothing is ever left to chance. She places infallible trust in her gut instincts, but never loses sight of the fact that a song is constructed with an overall architecture in mind. "For me, the actual songwriting is always the most important thing on an album," she says, "The reason you go into the studio in the first place is because you’ve got a batch of new songs. It’s true that some songs come more quickly than others, but before you’re satisfied with something, you’ve got to love it. I think it’s all very instinctive, really… At the end of the day, all form of creation relies on instinct and structure. There’s always a bit of both involved. And that holds true whether you’re talking about sound, texture, orchestration, the choice of instruments or the construction of a song."
On her latest album, Keren Ann points out that post-production was also a vital moment. The committed globe-trotter, who spends much of her life dashing back and forth across the world to work with different artists, has got into the habit of recording in different studios, laying down a snatch of guitar here, a burst of piano there. The eclectic sounds and arrangements on her new album are all held together by her vocals, which are hauntingly aerial and ethereal, managing to sound both close and distant. "Before this album I used to like recording my vocals in a very intimate setting," she says, "I liked to shut myself away somewhere in a small, dark room…But this time round I had an urge to record in big spaces with high ceilings so that the vocals echo a bit as if they’re coming from a stage. And I’ve used special effects on the vocals here and there, as well. You can alter your voice by using different microphones, different compressions … When you’re recording the vocals, sound can really transport you somewhere else and give you ideas while you’re recording. Generally speaking, I like the vocals to sound natural and instinctive, though. The idea was to create a sound landscape that I could immerse myself in and feel my voice issuing out of me."
On her new album Keren Ann hops freely from one genre to another, drawing on everything from American songwriting tradition to lighter, pop melodies. Keren Ann, who describes herself as "a citizen of the world", determinedly ploughs her own musical furrow, insisting that "My music isn’t influenced by different cultures. It’s not world music. I’m the one who’s cosmopolitan to a certain extent. I feel at home in France, at home in Israel, where I was born, and at home in New York where I’ve lived at times. I don’t have any sense of nationality, a belonging to one place rather than another. And it’s the same with languages, because that’s the way I was brought up, speaking several different languages... There were never any barriers. That’s something I’ve never understood, the idea of people separated by barriers and walls. There are moments when that really gets me down. It’s something I’ve noticed in France after being away for a while, I always find there are too many barriers between different cultures here. And those barriers simply shouldn’t be there. We live in a vast, vast world, but it ends up being small and restrictive."
Keren Ann is certainly not someone who appreciates being hemmed in in either a geographical or a musical sense. A breath of freedom has always blown throughout her work and when asked whether she ever recognises any constraints, her answer is fast and unequivocal. "None at all! And if I had felt any, I would have done something else as a career. OK, when you choose to write songs, you have to tell your story through a verse-and-chorus structure. It’
s not like you’re writing a novel! Songwriting is a narrative form which has its own limits. But within those limits I’m totally free. No-one around me, neither my friends or the people I work with gets to listen to an album before it’s completely finished. And I don’t think you can get any freer than that! The reason I work like that is that I don’t want the slightest criticism or throwaway remark to influence the direction I’ve chosen to take on an album. I believe there’s only one way to create in this business and that’s to do exactly what you want. After that, you have to work really hard to achieve it and you have to have a lot of self-discipline, but that’s another story!"
The singer, now in her early thirties, has plenty of time ahead of her to develop that story. But, interestingly enough, Keren Ann claims she has no desire to look too far into the future. "I’ve never had what you might call career plans or long-term projects," she says, "I’ve always been content to go where life leads me. Always. I’m absolutely incapable of saying where I might be in six months’ time. I simply use the ingredients I have at hand and let life decide the rest! It’s simply not in my character to make projects and plan ahead. I’ve never been like that."
While her peers may spend sleepless nights worrying about career development and record sales, Keren Ann appears to be content to live in the present. "The thing is, I don’t depend on my profession," she says, "Maybe that was the case ten years ago, but it’s certainly not now. These days, I don’t depend on my creative output. My creative output depends on me. It’s a question of allowing yourself time. I don’t want to become a slave to songwriting, because there have been certain periods in my life when I just couldn’t stop. These days, what I believe is important is allowing yourself time to breathe and live life to the full. That’s something I know I need in any case!"
Valérie Passelègue
Translation : Julie Street
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