Sweet Sorrow Listening Post 350. Are the words Nour refers to in the title of her fourth album elegant because they are raw, or because they are believed—or is it both? From the lyric ambiguity we can’t be sure, and that seems to be the elegant point. The album...
Variations on a Name Listening Post 339. Isabelle Geffroy grew up as Isa but went on stage as Zaz, the larger-than-life avatar of a shy extrovert who came to personify twenty-first century French chanson. Success didn’t spoil her but after her fourth album in 2018 she...
Son, Disciple, Troubadour Listening Post 294. On his fourteenth album Francis Cabrel exhibits a striking mix of freshness and nostalgia, reminding fans new and old why his voice, pen and ever-expanding canon of folk-blues-chanson remain so central to the soundtrack of...
Hallelujah 2020 Listening Post 248. At 14, Erza Muqoli has already led an eventful life, her success framed by a dramatic family backstory. The heart of her biography is her incandescent voice, at once floating and penetrating, girlish and mature. She burst on the...
Lost and Found Listening Post 233. Clio doesn’t so much write songs as paint them. Her lyrics flow in conversational tones, filling each story like brush strokes on a canvas. On Déjà Venise (Already in Venice), her second album, the French singer-songwriter is...
