Daphné
Carmin

Listening to this album on rainy days is particularly sublime. Not that it isn't also on sunny days, but its beauty and its ability to captivate is revealed through rainy days, because just the first chords are enough to make it feel like a summer day.

"Charmin" is the album of a young French chanteuse, Daphné, who has the extraordinary ability to bring a smile to anyone who listens to it and for this reason, it is appreciated even more during sad moments. It's not pop, and for this, it's even more incredible; it's a rarefied music, often akin to the worlds of Kate Bush or Nina Simone: where jazz and electronics blend to leave no escape in an impressive compositional beauty elixir.

The voice of the young singer-songwriter proves to be truly unique, halfway between the Kate Bush-like falsetto and the classic French Lolita: it pirouettes, rises, falls, hits high notes, in a swirl of guttural sounds that leaves no one indifferent. No avant-garde experiments à la Yoko Ono, mind you, so those looking for cryptic and truly incredible experiments will find nothing in this album, but those who love music in all its generality and completeness cannot fail to be attracted by the second album of an artist to watch out for. There's still greatly personal and creative eclecticism: soul, pop, jazz, indie, alternative rock, electronics, classical, harpsichords, chanson: a mélange that perfectly suits the jazzy voice the young singer presents to us. Just the opening "Musicamor" to hear the summer crickets: Spanish-sounding guitar, echoes of Gotan Project, to then plunge into a very successful acoustic song, supported by decisive drum beats. A Latin, almost ethnic touch, for a song that has the potential to be a radio hit: in her homeland, in fact, it's the first single and a hit, one of the rare cases where class and business walk hand in hand.

Then "Big Daddy Boy", Björk-like brass from "Drawing Restraint 9" and a still very personal voice, which in this piece reminds a lot of our own Meg. Very different from the previous one and much more experimental and jazz-like, the piece is almost a masterpiece: marching drums and bass, music box and maracas entering timidly, strings embellishing everything. Billie Holiday reigns supreme.

"Abracadabra" is introduced by an almost waltz-like interlude, of Wagnerian grandeur with Daphné taking a risk with an almost operatic voice, yet hitting the mark while losing herself in jazz-rock that manages to coincide with the 50s and 2000s with extreme ease. The following "Declaration A Celui" is incredible: one of the album's peaks, a very sweet acoustic love song, with some interventions of tablas, drums, and clarinet.

At this point in the album, you are already in open countryside, lost in Daphné's blues: you see her dance in a rustic dress, among flowering fields and butterflies flying around her. She improvises some clumsy classical dance steps, yet she is graceful and sensual. "Mourir d'un oeil" is a solid ballad built on the insistent chiming of a music box and of incredible enjoyment. The girl shows her sensuality with her voice, feminine and Lolita-like, yet very mature. When the song ends, you are moved: it's the turn of "Les Phenix", a beautiful love song (recommend it to your girlfriend... she will marry you!): simply acoustic and sweet, where the strings come in embracing the frail Daphné, who only in the chorus handles a graceful piano.

With "L'Homme Piano", Kate Bush appears on the horizon: harpsichord and "Wuthering Heights" falsetto for a short and very enjoyable rural song.

And the second single "Le Petit Navire", absolutely irresistible in its summery frivolity with typical French sweetness: cheerful and funny trumpets, a very enjoyable and catchy chorus.

At this point, you're enchanted, the poppies dance to the rhythm of this talented woman's rustic melodies when, almost as a game, she offers us in conclusion the four best pieces of her career: "Penny Peggy", incredibly melancholic and sparse with its acoustic pace, hurts the heart, is tough and harrowing. Inspired by Fiona Apple.

"Les Yeux Commanches" cannot but recall Björk's "Medúlla", for the a cappella, the choral voices that accompany everything, incredible despite its brevity.

"Par La Fenetre" is the song Tori Amos would have written if she were more romantic: here are the emotions of the red-haired English singer-songwriter: spectral piano, strings entering and accompanying the beautiful voice of this enfant terrible. It disturbs: it is completely different from the other pieces of the album, but it's extremely beautiful. Gorgeous.

Closes with "Le Sogne De Neptune": Spectral siren song on an acoustic guitar that tingles the skin: it tingles like summer rain.

Indeed the album is about to end, it starts to rain again.
It's cold.
But just press "Play" again to dive back into summer.