Pomme - Les Failles
Failles away
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2019
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11
A good thing with Pomme is, she learns quickly. After a decent 1st EP, but where some people seemed to orient her to what she didn’t want to become (a beautiful girl singing hits written by others), then a good album which already was more like her, yet staying the result of more or less lucky collaborations, Les Failles paves the way to her very style at last. Her own personal unique style. (For I fear neither redundancy nor pleonasm.)
Immediate support to "La Lumière". Not only the song is very well written, but besides it’s super well arranged and produced, up to the slightest sound effects. A work close to perfection. If this track isn’t released as a single (and as a video) I’ll do a carnage!
Whereas you meet guitar and autoharp again, Pomme’s favourite instruments on stage since 3 years, this time the piano, played by Albin de la Simone, dominates. Albin’s fans will certainly recognize his touch since he co-produced the album as well.
You can meet a little too many oh oh oh’s, which is a recurrent Pomme’s flaw. Too bad.
All signed by the young female artist, the songs turn out to be truly pretty and prettily true. It’s more difficult to do than you can imagine. Just take the major-minor modulation in "Les Séquoias", on the word "Avant...", or the use of ternary rhythms (in 3 pieces).
As for the themes, whereas À Peu Près> was mainly lovesongs, they are now more diversified and broach the flaws ("Je Sais Pas Danser"), Alzheimer’s disease ("La Lumière"), personified anxiety ("Anxiété", with exceptional vocoder on her voice), or winter spleen ("Soleil Soleil")
Illustrated by Ambivalently Yours’ peculiar and tortured drawings, this album forms an ode to difference ("Grandiose") and to imperfection. Cause everybody’s got flaws. This is quickly learned.
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It’s short. The album lasts 34:52, no song is long and you even find 4 which don’t pass the threshold of 3 minutes. Including "Chapelle" which isn’t a real song but a sequence of a capella vocal exercises recorded in... a chapel, as titled. By the way the 2nd half of the vocals resumes the tune from "Les Séquoias", if you listen carefully.
You’ve got 10 songs left – only – with sometimes light or abridged lyrics. ("Pourquoi la Mort Te Fait Peur" Why does death scare you ...is left with no answer.)
So you’re likely to explore them quickly. And rapidly surprise yourself by awaiting what comes next, already.Addendum (March 2020): They release a too short album, then a few months later, bingo, they re-release an extended version of it. Fortunately for those who already got Les Failles, they can buy the new tracks in a detached EP too. It’s a good idea, and all artists should take the lesson – or else refrain from republishing their albums.
For, in the present case, except "Vide", those songs, which were rejected first, should have stayed in the drawer maybe. When an artist, or a producer, rules out some songs, he or she generally has good reasons to do so. Let’s stop believing that an artist who makes good stuff at a moment... can only make good stuff all the time. He or she has room for trial and error, for drafts. Like everybody.
Unfortunately, the extended album strategy has proven to be effective, especially these last 2 years: Angèle, Clara Luciani (twice), Tamino, Malik Djoudi, Antoine Élie, to mention only them. The exercise is here so compelled that you get lumbered with twice the same track ("Les Cours d'Eau"). Nevermind. Now that Pomme got a (deserved!) Victoire de la Musique award, the general audience is going to throw themselves on this one. 'Show-business' is show, but it’s business first. -
La Lumière
Je Sais Pas Danser
Soleil Soleil -
Chapelle
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The sentence
“Le vent a dévasté dans tes yeux le reste de lumière” ("La Lumière")
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her
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...And now, listen!
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Created06 December 2019
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