When we write for the regional press, we usually ask passing artists if they have a special link with the region. Often the opportunity for them to evoke an oily pan-bagnat eaten on a beach or other summer festivities of the same ilk.
For Clara Ysé, the air of the South has long had this scent of carefreeness. But in 2017, her mother, the psychoanalyst and philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle, died of a heart attack after trying to save two children from drowning, off a beach in Ramatuelle, not far from the building where she had spent so many summers.
Also a novelist (Grasset published her first novel, “Mise à feu”, in 2021), Clara Ysé evokes this lost paradise in “The House”. “At the entrance to the house/I am in dire straits/I see all the olive trees/All that is missing is you”say the words, which she declaims with a timbre evoking Barbara.
A taste for experimentation
The thirty-year-old, whom we met just before her concert at Midem +, in Cannes, on January 26, assures that music has often allowed her not to sink. Already noticed in 2019 with the EP “Le monde s’est double”, she took a big step with “Oceano Nox”. The title of this first album, released last September, evokes a verse from Virgil in “The Aeneid”: “And Oceano Nox roars / And the night rushes from the ocean”.
For the former philosophy student, with classical musical training, references cross and collide, without fear of a lack of taste. “Good taste is when it thrills me”laughs Clara Ysé, her legs folded on the sofa in her Cannes dressing room.
In her playlists, Barbara coexists with Maria Callas and Janis Joplin, as much as with Gregorian chants, the popstar Rosalia, the rapper Meryl or her male alter egos PNL and Dinos. “I have a somewhat experimental relationship with music. When everything is a little too fixed, I tend to get bored quickly.”
Since the age of 18, Clara Ysé has organized huge jams in her living room. “It must be ten square meters, but forty of us have already found ourselves in there, playing until seven in the morning, with people with very different registers.”
Sound travels
When she travels with friends, exploration almost always involves the discovery of new repertoires. “That’s how I became a fan of rebetiko [un genre musical des bas-fonds grecs ayant émergé au début du XXe siècle, Ndlr], For example. With my friends, we were going to play everywhere, in really rootsy places.”remembers the rising value of French song.
“When it came to going into the studio, a lot of those moments came back. That’s how you get the idea of mixing duduk [une flûte utilisée dans la musique arménienne, Ndlr] on electric guitar.”
The scene, between intimacy and unleashed horses
In his concerts, the introspective pieces, in piano-voice, are interspersed between two more cheerful tunes, in line with the recording sessions with Sage, co-producer of his album and much-in-demand arranger, having worked on the projects of Clara Luciani, Raphaël and Albin de la Simone.
“In the productions, I really wanted a balance between certain very stripped-down songs and others that would have a broader, catchy feel. I also wanted to mix the choirs, strings and brass with more contemporary textures, electro rhythms, synthsconfirm Clara Ysé. On stage, it’s often very moving to let go of the horses and return to something more naked, where you are more fragile. It gives a moment where we relate to the public a little differently.”
> Clara Ysé in concert on March 15 at the Théâtre Denis, in Hyères. Complete.
The unexpected echo of his song “Douce”
This Friday evening at the Victoires de la Musique, in the “original song” category, Clara Ysé will be in competition with “Douce”.
Facing her, SDM (“German Racing Car”), Pierre de Maere (“Child of”), Zaho de Sagazan (“The Symphony of Lightning”) and Louane (“Secret”).
The Parisian admits to being “surprised and touched” to be nominated for this piece. “It’s perhaps the most radical of my album. Normally, for this category, we think more of titles that have been played a lot on the radio.”
Clara Ysé sees her text as “a reconciliation with gentleness, with which [elle entretenait] a complicated relationship.” “As a woman, in this society, we often have an injunction to gentleness which is very far from real gentleness. It’s a way of reassuring those around you, sometimes letting go of your desires so as not to make too many waves. When we accept that gentleness can coexist with other, more troubled emotions, such as anger or indignation, we can end up finding it strong and beautiful.”