Crafting classy and refined sonic statements, Fredda releases a fourth elegant album, produced by Pascal Parisot and Sammy Decoster. ‘Le Chant Des Murmures’ anchors her colors in France’s musical world.
Always renewed, always refreshed, with a new album every two years, alternating between playful albums of 1960’s French covers (Radiomatic) and her own solo albums
« Things repeat endlessly so I trust the game of instinct and influences».
But there is a true continuity. This evolution, she owes it first to the experience acquired in the making of her previous album, l’Ancolie.
Since 2012, the chanteuse’s single ‘“Il ne me reste“ has been well received by the media. She played over 100 concerts, in duo in France, in Germany and in Switzerland (through label Le Pop Musik), in Québec (Francofolies of Montréal), in Austin, USA in March 2013 (South By Southwest festival).
The new songs were crafted during tours and were demoed with Fredda’s life partner and arranger, Pascal Parisot.
When came time to think about recording, Fredda asked a second collaborator, singer and guitar player Sammy Decoster, whom she’d met in Austin. She remembered his impressive live performance.
- « I want, for this album, to only trust the songs, to let go, to give priority to my emotions, and however the way we record, whatever my costume, an album is and remains a collection of songs ».
The team assembled, the three collaborators are joined by sound engineer Jean-Baptiste Brunhes, in a studio-laboratory environment. Unlike L’Ancolie that was recorded live, the trio plays all the instruments one by one, layer by layer. They become more and more inventive in this construction game while retaining the dynamic energy of the live.
Sammy brings to the front the aesthetic of his favorite female singers : Patsy Cline, Violetta Para, Françoise Hardy. He thinks of Fredda’s voice, sweet and haunted, to make it resonnate through an old ribbon microphone, with a few acoustic instruments to support his nylon guitar, with male choruses. Un album that could ressemble Mexican squeletons while remaining resolutely French.
In studio, they follow those paths and find along the way new directions, thanks to some featured guests, to the string arrangements of Pascal Parisot that highlight the magic of « chant du retour », the depth of « Quand j’étais une jeune fille“, a cover of “when I was a Young girl“. As for « Habitué à moi« , with the viola of Bertrand Belin, Pascal thinks of it as a contemporary blues. Throughout the 12 songs, the chanteuse wire-walks the melodies.
Feeling through a specifically feminine experience, relishing these pop-folk sketches, ballads, whispers, we want to simply listen to what constitutes, for Fredda, the essential of her album… the songs, ‘Chants’.