Lou Lesage
Lou Lesage

HER. Someone I've discovered in recent years. And about whom not many speak (she's received little attention in music magazines), but she could really make her mark. Without any pretension of competing with the sacred monsters. Without the haste of chasing success. Writing more than a few words about this is a great pleasure for me - not only because Lou Lesage corresponds to 99.99% of my female aesthetic canon (in other terms, she's my ideal girl in every aspect), but also because this little work of four songs (accompanied by "Under My Bed", her debut on longer distances) is the portrait of a young woman in whose story music could play a non-marginal role. The Frenchwoman from Boulogne, born in '91, is already known in her home country as a model and actress for cinema and theatre, but I decided I would love her unconditionally when I read that her all-time favorite piece is "No Fun", and that as a child two minutes of garage-rock were enough to "thrill" her - raised in a very "hippie" environment, both her parents are musicians and members of the duo Ultra Orange. And electricity has always intrigued her in a special way, rock'n'roll chords even more than national chansonniers, who nonetheless played in the house day by day.

She isn't a cover girl (in its less positive sense), not the face-image of a commercial project, not even food for snobbish intellectuals: she is just a girl who primarily does other things in life and wanted to create something of her own in the form that suits her best: the sounds that have always accompanied her. I listen to her interpret "Forgotten Child" (sure, on a path already marked by Hope Sandoval) and the charm of this sensual lullaby sung with a child's voice captivates me, well beyond the intrinsic value - not transcendental - of the song. The related video is splendid, the piece is the backbone of this mini-work made almost entirely in the family, with her father writing and playing most of the (few) instruments. Pulled guitars and essential accompaniment also for "Dirty Looks", where the pedal is pushed a bit on a more usual rock'n'roll, and for the "nirvanian" "Private Life", before the extreme stripping of "Never Can Wait" - as far as possible from every stereotype of pompous and over-produced rock. Songs that reflect Lou's personality, well aware of the independent sounds of these years but also good at highlighting her most intimate vein - with a class and ease that make us look forward to (without hurry, as and when she wants) possible developments in the coming years. To date, the times aren't ripe yet for a definite judgment. I would hate to stick a number on her.

But I really hope and care. For Her, for her music.

Especially after having declared unconditional love...