Tag: Laure Briard Un peu plus d'amour s'il vous plaît

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Laure Briard Shares ’70s-Inspired “The Smell of Your Hair”

Laure Briard is a Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter, who has a had a highly uncommon path to professional music. Briard bounced around several different interests and passions for some time: She studied literature and criminology and even acted a bit, before concentrating on music full-time in 2013.

After the release of her debut EP, 2013’s Laure Briard chante la France, Briard met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps, and the trio began working on the material that would eventually become her full-length debut, 2015’s Révélation. Inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan, Révélation featured modern and poetic lyricism. 

Briard then signed with Midnight Special Records, who released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse. Repeated trips to Brazil inspired and informed her next three efforts –2018’s Coração Louco EP, 2019’s Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit and 2021’s En Voo EP, which were heavily indebted to Bossa Nova and saw the Toulouse-based artist writing and singing lyrics in Brazilian Portuguese and French. Those three efforts were rooted in a successful series of collaborations between the Toulouse-based JOVM mainstay, the equally acclaimed JOVM mainstays,  Latin Grammy Award nominated, Brazilian psych rockers Boogarins, Marius Dufflot, and her longtime collaborators Vincent “Octopus” Guyot

The JOVM mainstay’s fourth album Ne pas trop rester bleue is slated for a February 10, 2023 release through Midnight Special Records. Inspired and informed by Joshua Tree, a remote national park that’s a no man’s land, where space and time seem to stretch on forever. An odd fantasy land, where America’s simultaneously obsolete and haunted by its myths and past legends. But ultimately, the album celebrates rebirth and letting go.

Although Ne pas trop rester bleue took three long years to finish, the album was enriched and informed by her travels, and as a result, the effort was liberating. Reportedly much lighter and more optimistic than Sur la piste de dance, an album rooted in broken destinies, disillusionments and heartbreaks, Ne pas trop rester bleue is a cathartic, deeply autobiographical effort that allows the Toulouse-based JOVM mainstay to essentially free herself from lingering ghosts — and to conjure new ones.

The album’s material is influenced quite a bit by the legendary Carole King, Lee Hazlwood, the poet Don Gibson and Bobbie Gentry. Briard continues her ongoing collaboration with Julien Gasc and Vincent “Octopus” Guyot, who assisted in the material’s arrangements. Sonically, the result is an album that draws from soul, pop and country featuring string and brass arrangements paired with the JOVM mainstay’s breezy delivery.

Featuring twinkling keys, brooding and shimmering strings and soulful brass arrangements paired with Briard’s coquettish delivery, Ne pas trop rester bleue‘s latest single “The Smell of Your Hair” sounds as though it could have been a unreleased track from the Tapestry sessions that was cut from the album. And much like Tapestry, “The Smell of Your Hair” tells a story about a heartbreaking encounter — but in this case, with a lonesome cowboy type in Joshua Tree, where fleeting passion under the desert sun was lulled by birdsong and the sound of wind. And instead of lamenting over the inevitable separation and giving into bitterness, heartbreak or even melodrama, the song’s narrator attempts to turn heartbreak into a playfully sunny and sensual memory.

Directed by Benjamin Marius Petit, the accompanying video for “The Smell of Your Hair” features Briard and her band playing in a full, behind-the-scenes styled visual. Fittingly, Briard and band are in ’70s-inspired costumes, playing in a ’70s-styled white box studio. Shot from four different camera perspectives, the clip utilizes diverse image styles and distortion effects (wide angle, fisheye, 360 tracking…), evoking “a psychedelic LSD trip in Woodstock, but also a mixing of eras, with visual references that could belong at once to the 70’s and to contemporary times,” explains the director Benjamin Marius Petit. “The goal was not to make a strictly ‘retro’ clip but, to best reflect the atmosphere of Laure’s music, to keep one foot in the past and the other in the present.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Laure Briard Takes VIewers on a Tour of a Surreal Cinematic Universe

Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter Laure Briard has had a highly uncommon path to professional music. Briard bounced around several different interests and passions she studied literature and criminology and even acted for a bit before concentrating on music full-time back in 2013.

After the release of her debut EP through Tricatel Records, Briard met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps, and the trio began working on the material that would eventually become her full-length debut, 2015’s Révélation. Inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan, Révélation featured modern and poetic lyricism.

Briard then signed with Midnight Special Records, who released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse. Since Sur la Pisa de Danse, Briard’s work has increasingly been influenced by Bossa nova: 2018’s Coração Louco, featured lyrics written and sung in Portuguese — and a guest spot from acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays and Latin Grammy Award nominated act Boogarins. 2019’s  Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit, which was released through Michel Records in Canada, Midnight Special Records in Europe and Burger Records here in the States continued Briard’s ongoing love affair with Bossa nova and Brazilian music. 

Released earlier this year through Michel Records in North America, Dinosaur City Records in Australia and Midnight Special Records in Europe, the Toulouse-based singer/songwriter’s latest effort Eu Voo sees Briard continuing her successful collaboration with Boogarins, as well as with her longtime collaborators Vincent Guyot, a.k.a. Octopus and Marius Duflot.

In the lead up to the EP’s release, I wrote about two of the EP’s released singles:

  • EP title track “Eu Voo,” 60s Scott Walker-like orchestral psych pop meets 70s AM radio rock-like take on Bossa nova, featuring Briard’s ethereal vocals cooing in Portuguese, twinkling Rhodes, shimmering guitars and jazz-fusion that evokes the swooning euphoria of reuniting with a long-lost love. 
  • “Supertrama,” which continues in a similar path as its predecessor — 60s Scott Walker-like orchestral psych pop meeting 70s AM radio rock     featuring twinkling piano, shuffling jazz-like drumming, a sinuous bass line, a regal horn arrangement, angular bursts of guitar and a soaring hook within an expansive yet breezy song arrangement. But just underneath the breezy surface, the song evokes a familiar bittersweet ache. 

Eu Voo’s latest single “Não Me Diz Nada”is a breezy, orchestral psych pop meets 70s AM radio rock meets smooth jazz take on Bossa nova centered around two guitar-led melody, twinkling keys, shuffling jazz drumming, a clarinet solo and Briard’s dreamy and ethereal delivery. The song’s title, which translates into English as “Don’t Tell Me Anything” references how body language and gestures often speak for themselves — and loudly. Briard explains that she came into the studio with some words in Portuguese about a man, who gave off mixed messages.

Directed by Ruby Cicero, the recently released video for “Não Me Diz Nada” stars Briard as a wanted, gun toting criminal, criss-crossing France while on the run. Visually, the video references Thelma and Louise, Pulp Fiction, David Lynch, Hitchcock and Ridley Scott among others as we see Briard’s outlaw encountering odd characters.

“Thanks to Laure’s training as an actress, and her studies in criminology, we have created a woman with multiple facets: a candid thief who, with her changes of hairstyle and identity, looks a bit like Tippie Hedren in No Springtime for Marnie. Bold as a lonely Thelma who doesn’t have Louise’s nostalgia, Laure meets singular characters on her path, both comical and disturbing, whom she knows how to face,” Ruby Cicero explains.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Laure Briard Releases a Lighthearted and Playful Visual for Breezy “Eu Voo”

Rising Toulouse, France-based singer/songwriter Laure Briard has had an uncommon path to professional music: Briard has bounced around several different interests and passions, including studying literature and criminology and doing a bit of acting before fully concentrating on music in 2013.

Signing with Tricatel Records, Briard released her debut EP. Interestingly, as the story goes, the Toulouse-based singer/songwriter met Juilen Gasc and Eddy Cramps and began working on her full-length debut, Révélation, a pop-rock leaning album that received attention for material inspired by Françoise Hardy, Margo Guryan and Vashti Bunyan that featured a very modern and poetic lyricism. Briard released her sophomore album, 2016’s Sur la Piste de Danse through Midnight Special Records.

But since the release of Sur la Pisa de Danse, Briard’s work has increasingly been influenced by Bossa nova with 2018’s Coração Louco, featuring lyrics written and sung in Portuguese — and a a guest spot from acclaimed Brazilian JOVM mainstays and Latin Grammy Award nominated act Boogarins. Building upon a growing profile, Briard’s third album, last year’s Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plâit was released through Michel Records in Canada, Midnight Special Records in Europe and Burger Records here in the States.

Earlier this year, Briard tackled São Paulo, Brazil-based singer/songwriter and guitarist Sessa’s “Grandeza.” The cover continued her ongoing love affair with Brazil and Brazilian music while crafting a dreamy rendition full of the wistful and bittersweet ache to the things and people you can’t have — and may never have again.

The Toulouse-based singer/songwriter’s forthcoming effort Eu Voo finds Briard continuing her successful collaboration with Boogarins, as well as her long-time collaborators Octopus (Vincent Guyot) and Marius Duflot. The EP’s first single, EP title track Eu Voo is a breezy 70s AM radio rock-take on Bossa nova, centered around Briard’s ethereal cooing in Portuguese, twinkling Rhodes, shimmering guitars and punchy jazz fusion-inspired drumming to help evoke swooning euphoria of reuniting with your love.

Written at home, several months after her first trip to Brazil in 2017, while suffering from pneumopathy and taking Tramadol, “Eu Voo” was recorded earlier this year — but as Briard explains the song really came to life earlier this year during recording sessions at Dissenso Studio in São Paulo. “‘Eu Voo’ is a song about crossing the ocean to find one’s beloved,” Briard explains,. “During the new recording session in January, I absolutely wanted to do the song while changing the initial arrangements: accelerate the tempo and make it more punchy, catchy. With the Boogarins in the chorus singing with me ‘estou a travessar o oceano,’ ‘I cross the sea!'”

Directed by her frequent collaborator Norma, the recently released video finds Briard meeting a worker in the desert, where she gets measured for personally-made wings. The rest of the time, we follow our wing-wearing protagonist running in circles in an attempt to fly. Much like the accompanying song, the video is a bittersweet fever dream.

“Laure has been my friend for years, and she has always inspired in me images, settings,” the video’s director Norma explains. “I imagined her as an outlandish heroine in an American indie movie, tender and offbeat. I created a clip of my dreams, and I made for her bird wings, to fly far away from heartaches and pains of the soul, above the towns, overhead canyons, towards the blue horizon. We left the earthy Landes for the surreal landscape of the Bardenas desert, in Spain, where we found our American fantasy. We shot these images in a few hours, as the sun was going down. But as I was closing up the equipment, I felt the desert sand rise – I lifted my head and there before me, Laure was flying. I opened a warm San Miguel and watched her make circles around the twilight.”

Eu Voo EP is slated for a February 19, 2021 release through Michel Records in North America, Dinosaur City Records in Australia and Midnight Special Records in Europe.