Barbara Carlotti

Some songs were made to exist. Even more, to save us—if not life itself, at least our faith in it. This is the case for every song on Chéris ton futur!, which, at a moment when the Sex Pistols proclaimed there was no future, draws on a rock'n'pop bedrock to prove otherwise. What to do to cherish one's future? asks Barbara Carlotti. We must find a perspective, question the tedious patriarchal legacies, reinvent love, and build a revolutionary context. After Magnétique (2018), an escape from reality through dreams, the family record, almost intimate, Corse île d'amour (2020), Chéris ton futur confronts us with reality, like an antidote to a present that is too violent. During the lockdowns, the singer realized, as many did, the fragility of her craft: what unsettled me in many places, including some unsuspected ones. So Barbara decides to give free rein to the exaltation of feeling, for an album she intends to be galvanizing—like a breath of hope. She immerses herself in the music, for that is where the light reveals itself to her, and, after months of COVID isolation, surrounds herself with an enthusiastic team. Her love of French pop she cultivates here with a new partner in crime, Maxime Daoud (Ojard), the album’s arranger and co-producer. He has a gift for expanding harmonies, for sounding better, for translating Barbara’s musical colours. Together they create these ten songs of a slightly crazy elegance, allergic to morality, curious about everything and above all the unknown, as evidenced by the titular track shared with friend Philippe Katerine. The rhythm sections were recorded live at Bastien Doremus’s studio, in only a few takes. Maxime called in a team he knows well: Louis Delorme (drums), Adrian Eudeline (guitar), Corentin Kerdraon (piano), Adrien Soleiman (saxophones) and David Numwami (guitar, vocals). As for the mixing, it will be handled by Bertrand Fresel, who previously worked on L'amour, l'argent, le vent, the precursor to Chéris ton futur. Another partner: Rome. During a residency at the Villa Medici in 2021, Barbara set up a home studio in her room. She fully enjoyed the ghosts of a city steeped in cinema while revisiting her own demons and painful loves in light of that era. With computers and phones, we have a greater awareness of the world around us, she explains. We are convalescents, from Covid but also from these dreadful news that keep raining down on us near as well as far. The human is in convalescence, then, proclaims one of the songs on Chéris ton futur!, not shying away from succumbing to the beauty of a moment (Le Syndrome de Stendhal), nor from gently taking revenge with Désert dévorant, while Parle confronts us with our own ambiguities. We must reconsider our past to do better in the future and take good care of our style, smiles Barbara, for whom depth and form are one: love is not a hackneyed space; we must render its image more powerful. That gives the album a philosophical edge, existentialist even since it speaks of life, death, and love—always Barbara’s anchor. The backing vocals, guitars, all come together to foster an affirmed, contemporary, multi-referential lyricism. In Barbara Carlotti’s repertoire: Blondie, LCD Soundsystem (special mention to the drum machine on Dance Yrself Clean), The Stooges (full tilt on Chéris ton futur), Marianne Faithfull, The Talking Heads, David Bowie (seventies organic rock version), The Velvet Underground, as well as Etienne Daho, Telex and Hubert Lenoir on the Francophone side. Last but not least, Laurie Anderson, whose vocal treatment was a major source of inspiration, particularly on Parle. Minimalism thus fuses with the baroque. Despair is swept away without mercy. The melodies are addictive and pop fulfills its euphoric role. Faced with the vertigo that gripped her at the beauty of Rome, recounted in Le Syndrome de Stendhal, Barbara Carlotti wants to turn her emotions and sensations into talismans, for that is also the salt of existence. And Chéris ton futur! gives us a little more of that. Life—save yourselves!