Zaho de Sagazan - La Symphonie des Éclairs

Obsessing. Here is the adjective which matches best Zaho de Sagazan’s songs.
But firstly what’s this name? It’s the real name of a young blond female singer coming from Saint-Nazaire (near Nantes). She claims to inherit from Barbara and Brel. And finds it funny to fill up all venues and festivals she’s been going for 1 or 2 years, even when her – devastating – album wasn’t even released and she only had a few singles on the clock. Phenomenon! This artist is a whirlwind which sweeps away everything in your path.

Her style? Between French chanson and electro, with dark and poignant lyrics. Sort of Stromae in the feminine form, indubitably. I have never entered ‘stromaenia’ however. I pricked up my ears by the time the Belgian appeared in the landscape with "Alors On Danse", because he brought something fresh and new. Then I gave up because I thought musically he was doing more or less the same thing all the time, the show aspect was overriding music and the words didn’t touch me. Which is not the case with Zaho. Her songs tear off flaps from us. Directly in the flesh. Stunned, we ask for more.
    
She broaches domestic violence in "Les Dormantes", lyrics she confesses she had trouble to end, and which she’d like as few persons as possible share.
Centrepiece of the structure, "Tristesse", a corrosive personification of sadness, describes our will, often aborted, to keep our emotions under control as if we were a puppeteer rather than a puppet.

Close to some Malik Djoudi in the sound (not in the voice), she joins the not so many artists doing some good electro-pop in French. You won’t wiggle all the time yet, for she included several very good moderate pieces: melancholic waltz ("Je Rêve"), incredulous ("Dis-Moi que Tu M'Aimes") or squarely terrifying ("Suffisamment") piano-vocals tracks.

I’m not annoyed with her for smoking spliffs to find inspiration ("Aspiration"). So many people did it before her, sometimes with stronger substances. I’m annoyed with her for having made of this the topic of a song. And a good one in addition! The kind of songs which enter your head. Like the majority of the record.
But that’s not the question. One should not force inspiration. It comes or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, best not write and wait, pure and simple.
Actually, the singer-songwriter confided she found it seedy and she was quite able to write well while being sober. She is right.

More than her voice, androgynous, at the limits of masculinity, her phrasing is amazing, unique. And what about her aaah!’s slipped between the sentences. Sometimes you’re entitled to the combo aaah-mmmh. With a tint of irritation. Which contributes to making her songs even more obsessing.