Toulouse. “This album has changed me, for the better”
This Friday, January 28, the third album of the Toulousains of Cats on Trees is released, the very successful “Alie”. Nina Goern and Yohan Hennequin have fallen and, icing on the cake, we will find them at the Bikini on April 8. Meeting with Nina.
This Friday, January 28, the third album of the Toulousains of Cats on Trees is released, the very successful “Alie”, stuffed with potential hits (“Please, Please, Please”, “She was a girl”, “Wake Up”, Lost Found Love”) melancholic and sunny at the same time, suitable soundtracks for a cold but luminous winter. Nina Goern and Yohan Hennequin refused and, icing on the cake, we will find them at Bikini on April 8. Meeting with Nina.
What feeling dominates at the release of a new album: slowing down, excitement, apprehension?
Excitement! I’m so not afraid, I’m like a superhero! We’re so proud of the album. I know that he changed me, for the better, and that there will be a before and an after in my life. I am no longer the same person.
You composed it, because of the confinement, each on your side and yet, we hear a total cohesion between you two…
It’s true that for the first time, we weren’t working with office hours: from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., go to Yohan’s, and we ended up finding it normal not to see our children and our respective partners anymore… We no longer saw who we were. The confinement arrived and I found myself alone in front of a mirror, I spent time with my children and the person I love. The relationship with Yohan took up so much space… So we composed everyone at home, at their own pace. We’ve often thought we were the same, but no: we’re different and that’s what makes the richness of our duo.
The songs are melancholy, but set to luminous melodies: a good definition of pop?
Melancholy, yes, but also organic and artisanal. The confinement solved a lot of things: we didn’t go to the studio, we worked at home with little. I learned a lot on the technical side, with a computer, a piano, a microphone and two or three percussion instruments. No sound engineer, but small imperfections: on one track, we hear Yohan in the background, cooking! In the end, I really think it’s our most “true” album.
Your relationship is at the heart of a few texts…
Not that much: “Old Friends”, in fact, does a bit of an inventory of our relationship. The others evoke, as often, the relationship with the other: friends, parents, nature, death…
You have already written “Les Bateaux”, on the previous album, “Neon”. Here, we find three songs in French…
“Les Bateaux” was a simple and naive text. We weren’t really ready. The weight of the words is too strong. We are both very sensitive and the French language is too overwhelming; I couldn’t find a way to sing in French without crying, but I read a lot of stories to my children and it echoed the tales and poems that my mother read to me when I was a child. I start to write very strong things.
How did you work with Liam Howe (Lana Del Rey, Adele, FKA Twigs…)?
When we started creating these songs, we wondered if we wanted to work with someone else. We made a list with prestigious names, like we send a bottle to the sea, but we don’t believe it. And one day – he must have missed our email – Liam found our message and called us, he liked the songs and wanted to work with us, he said we were the French Cardigans: great compliment! So we worked as a threesome, on an equal footing, we took our time, without the pressure of a big studio. As for the faithful Pierre Rougean, with whom we have worked since the beginning, he knows us so well that he knows how to give us freedom, we question ourselves.
You are going back on tour at the beginning of February…
We are so relieved! We have prepared a very dreamlike show: the listener will also be a spectator. We used works by Yohan, who is a painter and sculptor. It will be a bit like a “cabinet of curiosities”. We can’t wait to get started, and can’t wait to be at the Bikini on April 8!