New Audio: L’Impératrice Shares Dreamy and Wistful “Love from the Other Side”

Acclaimed Paris-based electro pop sextet and JOVM mainstays L’Impératrice  will be releasing their highly-anticipated, self-produced third full-length album Pulsar through microqlima records on June 7, 2024.  Pulsar is an album, where the band — founder Charles de Boisseguin (keys), Hagni Gown (keys), David Gaugué (bass), Achille Trocellier (guitar), Tom Daveau (drums) and Flore Benguigui (vocals) — made every decision while capturing the band’s spirit both onstage and off. 

Fittingly, the album reportedly radiates with the energy and wisdom of an outfit that has helmed countless dance parties around the world on the way to find itself and its sound. Throughout the album’s material, the Parisian JOVM mainstays move freely and authoritatively among the sounds they love, bridging hip-hop, kosmiche and modern pop with their most unabashed embraces of French Touch and international house of their growing catalog. Pulsar is also the first album of their catalog to feature guest vocalists, including acclaimed folk/pop artist Maggie Rogers and rapper/producer Erick the Architect among a list of others. 

The album sees the acclaimed pop outfit trying a new creative approach: They split into two teams of ever-interchanging members to explore new ideas, led by the band’s founder Charles de Boisseguin. It was a way of incorporating every voice into the songwriting process like never before, pulling from idiosyncratic upbringings and enthusiasm. They then passed tracks to lead vocalist Flore Benguigui, a longtime jazz singer, who would sometimes write two-dozen vocal melodies for a song, just to see which one fit best. It was an arduous and exciting process that saw the band go from writing through recording in about nine months. For L’Impératrice, this was the sort of self-determination they’d longed for and now found. 

Throughout the album’s material, the band’s Benguigui boldly sings of self-empowerment, shirking beauty standards, ageism and drag normalcy throughout the album’s material. These are apt messages for incandescent anthems of experience, of fully being yourself, instead of anyone else’s version of it. 

Pulsar‘s third and latest single “Love from the Other Side” is the album’s first English-language single. Featuring fluttering and glistening synth arpeggios paired with a supple and propulsive bass line and bursts of strummed guitar, the song’s arrangement serves as a lush bed for Benguigui’s dreamily wistful delivery. Sonically, “Love from the Other Side” sounds as though it could have been on Gorillaz ‘ Plastic Beach or MGMT‘s Congratulations.

“The first time I heard the instrumental, I thought, ‘That’s the vibe,’ even though it’s really different than what we do,” L’Impératrice’s Charles de Boisseguin says of his encountering an arrangement that begin with tehe band’s Achille Trocellier and Tom Daveau, the most rock-orientated members of the acclaimed Parisian outfit. “There is a British side to it, like Gorillaz with a bit of MGMT.” The band’s frontperson Flore Benguigui and Nicky Green wrote the song’s melody and lyrics together, building off the idea of “the good ghosts that are around you,” inspired by the bass line’s slight spooky feel.

The JOVM mainstays will be returning to North America for a month-long tour to support Pulsar. The tour includes a sold-out September 7, 2024 stop at Terminal 5 and a September 8, 2024 stop at Terminal 5 that’s been added due to popular demand. Several other stops on the North American and European legs of their tour are already sold out, and I expect that many more will set out soon. So grab those tickets before it’s too late.

L’IMPÉRATRICE TOUR DATES

Sep 5 The Anthem – Washington, DC

Sep 6 Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA *SOLD OUT

Sep 7 Terminal 5 – New York, NY *SOLD OUT

Sep 8 Terminal 5 – New York, NY *SECOND SHOW ADDED

Sep 10 MTELUS – Montreal, QC *SOLD OUT

Sep 11 MTELUS – Montreal, QC SECOND SHOW ADDED

Sep 13 Rebel – Toronto, ON

Sept 14 The Salt Shed – Chicago, IL

Sep 16 The Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO *SOLD OUT

Sep 17 The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT

Sep 20 Malkin Bowl – Vancouver, BC

Sep 21 Crystal Ballroom – Portland, OR

Sep 22 Showbox SoDo – Seattle, WA

Sep 24 Fox Theater – Oakland, CA *SOLD OUT

Sep 25 Fox Theater – Oakland, CA *SECOND SHOW ADDED

Sep 27 Los Angeles, CA – Shrine Expo Hall

Oct 11 L’Aéronef – Lille, France

Oct 12 Stereolux – Nantes, France *SOLD OUT

Oct 17 Le Rocher De Palmer – Bordeaux, France

Oct 18 Le Bikini – Toulouse, France

Oct 19 La Sirène – La Rochelle, France

Oct 25 Ancienne Belgique – Brussels, Belgium

Oct 26 den Atelier – Luxembourg

Oct 27 Carlswerk Victoria – Cologne, Germany

Nov 6 Alcatraz – Milan, Italy

Nov 7 La Belle Électrique – Grenoble, France

Nov 8 L’Autre Canal – Nancy, France

Nov 22 L’Olympia – Paris, France *SOLD OUT

Nov 23 L’Olympia – Paris, France *SOLD OUT

Nov 26 Roundhouse – London, UK *SOLD OUT

Nov 28 Melkweg – Amsterdam, Netherlands *SOLD OUT

Nov 29 Melkweg – Amsterdam, Netherlands *SOLD OUT

Dec 8 Columbiahalle – Berlin, Germany

Dec 9 Roxy – Prague, Czech Republic

Dec 11 Gasometer – Vienna, Austria

Dec 12 X-Tra – Zurich, Switzerland

Dec 13 Thônex Live – Geneva, Switzerland