Clara Ysé, a unique voice in search of desire

According to Lacan’s homophony, it is the mother, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Anne Dufourmantelle, who died in 2017 at the age of 53 on a beach in Ramatuelle (Var) after saving two children at risk of drowning. And there is the sea, to which the first album of the singer and novelist Clara Ysé turns. From the beautiful title it is clear, Oceano Noxborrowed from Virgil from theAeneid : “And the night rushes to the sea” (“And the night flows from the sea”).

It is tempting and misleading to interpret this recording as a therapeutic exercise, a continuation of a mournful work written by the future author Burn (Grasset, 2021) had made this public through a letter to his loved one, which was published in the columns of Release under the title “You taught me to say yes, to immerse my head in the invisible, to celebrate life”. ” Alone Letter to M talks about them and the relationship to lack, corrects Clara Ysé. wizard reminds of my first love, a girl I was very much in love with for three years and some managed to find my mother there… People like drama. But the theme of the album is desire and how to reintegrate it into your life. »

What this 31-year-old Parisian is working on on Tuesday December 5th on the stage of the Café de la danse near the Bastille. His ascending rating envisages that he will increase the gauge for La Cigale (March 26, 2024, completed) before the inauguration of the Olympia (November 15, 2024). In the black top and skirt of a flamenco player, she multiplies the roles and in turn becomes a tragedy in a variety show (“It’s true, I can only sing about shipwrecks”, she breathes into it wizard) and queen with the gestures of an oriental dancer. Surrounded by an impeccable quartet who had to rearrange their songs around the rumble of a baritone saxophone.

Latino tropism

She leaves her group for a one-on-one conversation with the audience. Here she grabs a Spanish guitar and sings The LloronaThe “White lady we see before we die”, sung by Chavela Vargas. Clara Ysé also borrowed scarves from the heroine of the Mexican ranchera song. Like the one she wears in front of a white horse on the cover of her album. This Hispanicness also connects her with a “Spanish grandmother of the heart”, present in the room, and to a Colombian nanny. How it feeds his tropism for the magical realism of Latin American literature.

After the revelations of L (Raphaële Lannadère), then of Zaho de Sagazan, Oceano Nox confirms the uniqueness and strength of new female voices, whose intimate expression comes from the same descendants, that of Barbara, including the theatricality. “I listened to her a lot, with Leo Ferré, agrees Clara Ysé. I have always been touched by the overflowing voices, these special and timeless timbres that make a soul heard and that at the beginning we don’t know whether we like them or not. Whether it’s Maria Callas, Janis Joplin, Björk or Rosalia, I like voices full of contradictions. Chavela can be both hoarse and crystalline, you can hear both the little girl and the old lady. »

Ysé is his middle name, given to him as a tribute to the character of Share at lunchtime, the only woman in Paul Claudel’s drama. This choice points to the cultural background from which the daughter of the painter Bruno Dufourmantelle comes, whom she says she often observed at work: “He always starts from dark shapes to bring in light, I find that in what I do. » Singing from the age of 8, master’s degree in philosophy, then the conservatory with regional influence in Paris.

“I imagined technology as a series of rules for controlling one’s body, which can distance us from the animalistic, while it is exactly the opposite, she notices. It is there to remove veils that hinder the passage between your heart and the person who is listening, which we hear well in flamenco or Arabic music. Giving up a lyrical career in favor of composing and writing saved my life, but I was left with a longing for that intensity that ran through my body in the highs and lows, the harmonious progressions. »

The world has split, In 2018, a self-produced and promising mini-album with six tracks was released. At that time she was writing in three languages ​​(French, Spanish and English) and met the musician and producer Sage (aka Ambroise Willaume, former member of the group Revolver). ” Pour Oceano NoxI needed a backbone: that’s why I decided to express myself exclusively in French and all the songs are about love, even if it’s very simple. Love despite everything, because we do not live in this world without being plagued by anger and violence. »

The result tends to be a blockbuster combination “the old, with strings, choirs or duduk, the oboe of traditional Armenian music, and the contemporary, with synthesizers, electronic rhythms, tinkering with the voices”. But also to the purity of the piano voice pour Soft (“If you knew the bitch I’m hiding in there.”, she dares) and The house.

Rare words

At the Café de la danse she invites her group of friends to polyphony, the same group as when she was 18: “We continue to hold music evenings once a month with people from classical music, jazz, Greek music, pop, electronic… We play until 6 in the morning.” It gave me a lot of ideas for the album. » Then the beef gives way to elegy Letter to M, transformed into a duet with the cello of Jérémie Arcache (also ex-Revolver).

“It is not because we speak from ourselves that we speak of ourselves.”, observes Clara Ysé, convinced of this “Music is bigger than us.” Oceano Nox is therefore not egocentric, which leaves room for a cross-generational approach (Pyromaniacs) to set life on fire or to Sovereigns, a more conventional feminist homage. Between “Water and Fire”the verb carefully avoids proper names and Loss of name, but don’t reject a few rare words in the song. So “joy”, used twice: “When the sea pleases you / You will reign beneath the crystal clear waters” (The star), Then “It seems that love has stolen us” (Sun at midnight). A double meaning, “remove” or “enchant,” that suits the musician perfectly.