LA MAISON MAGIQUE

Description

Clair is not short of breath, as evidenced by a debut album of twelve songs that reveal her in as many playful facets, alternately bubbly, touching, playful like Anna Karina, and a mischievous blonde like a local Nancy Sinatra, an exquisite woman-child or a mohair-sweater ballerina who soars far above an era too dull and down-to-earth. It must be said that Clair is in good hands, chaperoned by none other than Philippe Katerine, who composed and wrote this subtle and delightful repertoire tailor-made for her, produced the album, and incidentally launched his own label, Maison magique, which also bears his name. A Parisian who grew up in a distant Val d'Oise suburb that resembled the countryside, the thirty-something Clair(e) has been part of the singer's entourage for over ten years, when she was enlisted as a dancer and backing vocalist for the music videos, tours, and records of the man who considers her his female alter-ego. "If I were a singer and had been given a choice of voice, I would have chosen hers," says Katerine, and Clair adds, "I've played these songs so much alone on guitar that I feel like I wrote them," emphasizing an obvious kinship that springs to mind from the very first notes. But while she adores sixties France Gall, Clair is neither a wax and sound doll nor the docile puppet of a Pygmalion who would condescend to her. For these songs, which came to life during long-distance exchanges during lockdown, Philippe truly slipped into Clair's skin, adopting and adapting her whimsy, her moods, her humor, her (fuzzy) view of the world around her, and her biting lucidity too. In the vintage setting of the Audioscope studio, equipped with an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder, Philippe Katerine, his co-producer Victor Le Masne, and musicians with elastic powers deployed this beautiful trompe-l'œil musical backdrop that gives the illusion of being in Bel Air, California, Rio in '54, or London in '66. References abound, yet nothing in this record exudes the dust of antiquities. It merely fits into a tradition of music that sparkles, drills, and teems with ideas, no matter the era. It's a slightly wild, undeniably chic French pop of which she is the heiress.