An expected return.
Woodkid, Yoann Lemoine of his real name, 37 years old, has just been released on October 16 after 7 years of absence with a new album
S16
where the singer is “
violent
” and “
revealed
” as during “
a long night insomnia in someone's arms
”.
"
I say things with my music that I can't say to others
" admits Yoann Lemoine, French multi-cap artist, who has notably produced music videos for Rihanna, Moby and Lana del Rey.
From his collaborations with musicians but also with Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of Louis Vuitton, who invites him each season to compose the original music for his parade, Woodkid seeks "
other ways of thinking" and "to learn through contradiction.
".
This is the whole purpose of
S16
.
"
If my first album
(
Golden Age
, 800,000 albums sold, 200 concerts in the world, editor's note)
was a kind of Hollywood blockbuster where I tell life in a more fantasized way, with S16 I'm talking about more realistic and concrete things
", specifies Woodkid.
Ballad and brass explosion
Homophobia, identity, relationship to addiction, the 37-year-old singer-director leaves “
more room for words
” in
S16
to tackle themes in a “
raw and unfiltered
” way.
What have you done?
("What did you do") he wonders in the title
Shift
.
Repeated like a mantra, in a powerful voice, this call is accompanied simply by piano and stringed instruments.
“
I wrote it a few weeks after the 2015 Paris attacks,
” the singer told AFP.
When he found out what was going on in Paris, he was then filming in Los Angeles.
After fear, the question arises of the “
way to learn
”.
It is one of the first songs he writes, "
surely the trigger
" of his desire to come back with a new album.
If
Shift
is a melancholy ballad,
Goliath
is punctuated by metallic percussions and brass explosions.
A threatening atmosphere, like the clip unveiled in the spring and shot a year ago by Woodkid, where we see machines devouring the earth in search of coal.
"
I decided that it was under the sound and visual envelope that I was going to place the degree of surrealism and fantasy to allow several reading grids
", announces the singer.
Sing to say
Infinitely large and small, industrial universes and natural elements, collective and individual responsibilities, the readings of
S16
are multiple.
It is also the site of the emergence of a political conscience in Woodkid.
Sing what he couldn't say.
In
Minus Sixty One
, accompanied by the children's choir of the Suginami Junior Chorus from Tokyo, he evokes a "
rout
", a "
world on the brink
" and "
humanity in tension
".
The timbre of this choir sounds a
bit like science fiction
.
A title which comes to complete the album of "
a cold light
", declares Woodkid.
S16
is designed for the stage, he says.
But the health situation has already postponed the dates of his tour, leaving more time for the singer to "
refine the visuals of his scenography
".
But for the live, it promises an orchestra even more important than for "
Golden Age
".
Electro-pop, video, 3D animation and special effects: Woodkid colors this album with a universe that we recognize from the first notes.