Floating to the Top

Listening Post 42. The second album by Jérémy Frérot and Florian Delavega explores and floats between innocence and experience, dream and reality, yesterday and today—and, as the title indicates, shadow and light. Just a year after their best-selling debut album, the new title also suggests the potential for the singer-songwriter duo to outshine themselves—or be overshadowed by early success. On that score, their close harmonies, meditative lyrics, acoustic arrangements and collaborations with other composers cast more light than shade. In Ton Visage (Your Face), they describe leaving the small town in southwest France where they grew up, the beach where they both worked as lifeguards, for the concrete, crowds and Métro of Paris, where “agitated nerves are a drag on my dreams” (video 1). Un petit peu de toi (A Little Bit of You) is an intimate reflection with a spare arrangement that caresses their voices like a fine mist: “Deep in my memory, everything sweetly comes back to me/My island, my treasure, I’ve found you at last” (video 2). Honoring the past is the theme of Le chant des sirènes 2 (Siren Song 2), a sequel to one of the most popular tracks from their first record: “I offer a smile to those years…” they sing, “Turn the pages, come the ages” (video 3). Other album high points are the surrealist imagery of Le coeur éléphant (Elephant Heart) and the jaunty À l’équilibre (In Balance). The wonder is that these young artists keep everything in balance while floating to the top. (Capitol Music France)