DESOLE POUR LES FANTOMES (vinyl)

Description

Theories of the mind and tightrope songs, the returning Benoît Dorémus thanks us. “Thank you! Thank you very much for understanding what it is to be an artist in 2021!” It is with these words from July 2021 that Benoît Dorémus closes the crowdfunding campaign for his fifth album, Désolé pour les fantômes, greeting his longtime fans online. It is also in this way, as with each of his records, that he sums up his life as a performer on the first track of this new chapter of his biography... “On croit en moi”. It is with this thoughtful, aggressive egotrip that the consenting adult singer sets the tone for this new album, his assured flow over electro beats and discreet guitars. Because yes, people believe in him. Fifteen years already that he has been here, a tightrope walker of French chanson, a little more so each time, independent and open. He seeks us out and finds allies, once childhood idols, today new talents, the duo Kiz, Marc Parodi and Alice Chiaverini, who here lay down textures and rhythms for him, recording his bare songs in staggered fashion. On the wire once again, Benoît Dorémus finds his balance, sometimes leaning toward the feminine, tender portraits of women, then toward the masculine, subtle, he makes a 360° turn toward the goofy, slips, agile, like in the video for this first track, on his roller skates. He sways, supple and determined to surprise us with all the facets of his forty-one years. With Bénabar, he is the caricature of the annoying bar flirt, with Clio, he is the fragile lover who does not know how to pack his bags. A ballerina’s knee that cracks, “La Danseuse blessée”, and the poet falls in love. There they are, the ghosts, fluttering too in “Pas d'enfant” or “Douze ans sans te voir”, over Johan Dalgaard’s pianos, suspended moments of lost innocence. And then, the man straightens up, takes up the course of his life again, speeds through the bends, has fun with his flaws, “Je retiens les dates des morts”, “Un simple rappel à la loi”, spoken word, words chanted to say that he is a man, what could be more natural? Somewhere between earth and sky, the singer hailed from space by astronaut Thomas Pesquet (the track “Rien à te mettre” tweeted live from the stars) reminds us that we are complex beings who live in several dimensions, that one cannot fight against ghosts, but that one can let them rest in peace.