Boussoles elles & eux Rhapsody in blue Channeling a melancholic mood, Keren Ann sings her new album in French, confirming her status as a leading light of intimate pop. Hypnotic and luminous. For her eighth album, KerenAnn has for over three years now, my daughter is osmosis. Strings give you a greater opted for blue as her leitmotif. The word in school here, so it was natural to revertsense of presence as a vocalist, there’s a is emblazoned across it—Bleue, in the back to French,” says the singer, who kind of liberation linked to the lyrical feminine—as the title, but its tones also made a name for herself nearly 20 years aspect of the arrangements. It is a way infuse the ten tracks, which evoke the ago, together with Benjamin Biolay, of changing genre from one disc to blue of the underwater depths (“Sous in “Jardin d’hiver,” which offered Henri the next, to avoid getting stuck in a l’eau”) and a loving gaze (“Bleu”), and Salvador a last comeback. category.” Her expertise has led to her verge on the blues at times, but mostly Since then, this fan of Leonard Cohen, writing for live performances in between celebrate the azure of serenity regained. Bob Dylan and Carole King has culti- albums (she’s an associate artist at Three years after You’re Gonna Get vated a style inspired by American the Théâtre National de Bretagne) and Love, a sepia album mourning the death singer-songwriters, while hanging on to for the cinema, notably for Franck of a lost hero, her father, the singer herethat quintessentially French melancholy Ribière’s The Most Assassinated Woman opens a happier new chapter—a few à la Françoise Hardy, so prevalent in the World, starring Anna Mouglalis fleeting blues notwithstanding, but that among female vocalists since the 1960s. and Niels Schneider, a recent film set in barely cast a cloud over such a dazzling While Hardy was often at the mercy Paris’s Montmartre district. In some disc. “Being blue also means being of other composers and arrangers, songs, Keren Ann sometimes plays always a novice, or at least trying to Keren Ann keeps a tight grip on virtually a role herself, as here with David Byrne maintain a constant spirit of renewal,” every dimension of her delicate art, of Talking Heads fame, who sings she says. The delightful novelty of this including the compositions for strings, (in French) on “Le goût d’inachevé” album is that it is sung entirely in French,as in Bleue. “This time I felt the need to(The taste of things unfinished), which Keren Ann had opted out of since write for classical instruments, after a striking romance about impossible love. Nolita (2004), as she set out to conquer several recordings made solely with But Bleue, like the famous Blue of the world and spend some time living in machines. I like to connect with another revered singer (Joni Mitchell), New York. “But I’ve been living in Paris instruments, to feel a kind of powerful is finished to a tee. BLEUE Polydor/Universal. EN CONCERT Le 24.10 à l’Olympia, Paris. 60 siraP ,sdraveluoB sdnarG sed letôH : stnemeicremeR