Between music and drawing, a new album and an illustrated book

The hour of maturity and the stage assessment seems to have struck for Albin de la Simone. Born in 1970 in Amiens (Somme), a jazz clarinetist father and a mother who introduced her to literature and the plastic arts, the artist hesitates for a long time between his two passions. He first studied drawing in Brussels, then the piano at the Paris Conservatory. And one beautiful day, he contrasts: it will be music, and even pop music!

Dubbed by Alain Souchon

After beginnings as an instrumentalist and arranger, Albin de la Simone begins to write his own songs at 30 and, dubbed by Alain Souchon, released his first album in 2003. Six others will follow to install his bitter-soft texts and his voice without artifice in the landscape of French-speaking song.

But now thirty years after being abandoned, the drawing returns to knock on its door, first slowly, then as a beautiful habit. “I draw on the tablet, but also a lot to the pen, directly, without pencils. I like this feeling of risk, of having to do with my approximations, ”explains the singer in the introduction to the collection of texts and drawings that he publishes with Actes Sud.

A new album of ten songs

He reveals what makes his heart beat, especially childhood memories. “Wanting to accompany the release of this book of songs, I have thread by needle experienced the need to revisit old successes,” he says. As a result, a new album of ten songs “which speaks of love and optimism, like so many nose to an often dark news”.

You there the title song, recounts the hatching of the feeling of love in a teenager. Why we cry is his declaration of love to a woman he does not yet know. “I recorded it alone in 2017. For the new album, I sing it as a duet with the young Belgian artist Alice on the Roof, in a softer tone. »Another nugget: an intimate and sensual version of My mouth by Johnny Hallyday.

No nostalgia in this double introspective dive. “I look in the rear view mirror to continue moving forward, improving things,” he says. This is why his tour, started on March 7, innovates. Alone on stage, standing, behind his yellow keyboard and his tablet, he alternates songs and drawing lively projected in the background. “A way to reconcile the time of a spectacle my two passions,” he argues. And to show a good loyalty to your leitmotif: “Do better than yesterday and less well than tomorrow.” »»