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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Petite Meller (No 1,737) | Petite Meller (No 1,737) |
| (8 months later) | |
| Hometown: Paris. | Hometown: Paris. |
| The lineup: Petite Meller (vocals, music). | The lineup: Petite Meller (vocals, music). |
| The background: She squeaks, she scores! Petite Meller - no relation to Petite Noir - is a French singer with one of those breathy high voices we happen to like for no fathomable reason. Possibly we heard Brigitte Bardot cooing Un Jour Comme Un Autre at a formative stage in our development, or we had a dream in which Vanessa Paradis was doing suspect things to Joe Le Taxi. Whatever, as soon as we heard the sometime Vogue and L'Oreal model "sing" (term utterly debased by legions of over-emoting belters) we knew hers was our kind of voice. | The background: She squeaks, she scores! Petite Meller - no relation to Petite Noir - is a French singer with one of those breathy high voices we happen to like for no fathomable reason. Possibly we heard Brigitte Bardot cooing Un Jour Comme Un Autre at a formative stage in our development, or we had a dream in which Vanessa Paradis was doing suspect things to Joe Le Taxi. Whatever, as soon as we heard the sometime Vogue and L'Oreal model "sing" (term utterly debased by legions of over-emoting belters) we knew hers was our kind of voice. |
| Reading on mobile? Click here to listen | Reading on mobile? Click here to listen |
| Don't be fooled by the cutesy hiccup or the flirtation with Lolita chic, though - Ms Meller is a philosophy postgraduate currently studying for her masters. She's a big fan of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his theories on the libidinal subconscious (who isn't?) as well as Deleuze and Guattari and their exploration of the rhizomatic principle. A reality TV dunce she is not. She's into French New Wave cinema and the Italian masters (Pasolini, Fellini, Visconti) and she even based the video to her single Backpack on Godard's Pierrot Le Fou and L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot. In it, she says, she and the director "were trying to capture aesthetic recollections of my childhood… [when] I was discovering my sexuality for the first time." Meller has actually recorded a version of Joe Le Taxi, which when we heard it invited all manner of Proustian rushes. She was also in a band called Terry Poison who had local hits with Comme Ci Comme Ça and Cinema, performed worldwide, and opened for Depeche Mode, Mark Ronson and Hurts. Now she's interrupting her studies to write jazzy pop ditties - with added sax - such as NYC Time, whose video, we should warn you, features several creepily sexual scenes; and synthpop ditties such as PC whose title, we should warn you, stands for Pussy Cocaine. Icebear in an adaption of Eisbar, a 1980 cult classic by Swiss "Neue Deutsche Welle" band Grauzone. Then there's Backpack, which secretes a subtle comment on the "ownership" of so-called negative psychological syndromes into a quirkily infectious pop context that could almost be a novelty hit and is accompanied by a film wherein our heroine - we really, really should warn you - channels the spirit of the young Mia Farrow, only lightly depraved. The buzz: "A saccharine-voiced Christmas angel meets Courtney Love." | Don't be fooled by the cutesy hiccup or the flirtation with Lolita chic, though - Ms Meller is a philosophy postgraduate currently studying for her masters. She's a big fan of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his theories on the libidinal subconscious (who isn't?) as well as Deleuze and Guattari and their exploration of the rhizomatic principle. A reality TV dunce she is not. She's into French New Wave cinema and the Italian masters (Pasolini, Fellini, Visconti) and she even based the video to her single Backpack on Godard's Pierrot Le Fou and L'Enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot. In it, she says, she and the director "were trying to capture aesthetic recollections of my childhood… [when] I was discovering my sexuality for the first time." Meller has actually recorded a version of Joe Le Taxi, which when we heard it invited all manner of Proustian rushes. She was also in a band called Terry Poison who had local hits with Comme Ci Comme Ça and Cinema, performed worldwide, and opened for Depeche Mode, Mark Ronson and Hurts. Now she's interrupting her studies to write jazzy pop ditties - with added sax - such as NYC Time, whose video, we should warn you, features several creepily sexual scenes; and synthpop ditties such as PC whose title, we should warn you, stands for Pussy Cocaine. Icebear in an adaption of Eisbar, a 1980 cult classic by Swiss "Neue Deutsche Welle" band Grauzone. Then there's Backpack, which secretes a subtle comment on the "ownership" of so-called negative psychological syndromes into a quirkily infectious pop context that could almost be a novelty hit and is accompanied by a film wherein our heroine - we really, really should warn you - channels the spirit of the young Mia Farrow, only lightly depraved. The buzz: "A saccharine-voiced Christmas angel meets Courtney Love." |
| The truth: Curious but nice mix of French chanson and commercial pop. Most likely to: Sound breathless (geddit?). | |
| Least likely to: Be PC. | Least likely to: Be PC. |
| What to buy: Backpack is released on April 28 by Night Beach. | What to buy: Backpack is released on April 28 by Night Beach. |
| File next to: Vanessa Paradis, Sliimy, Therese Bazaar, Madonna. | File next to: Vanessa Paradis, Sliimy, Therese Bazaar, Madonna. |
| Links: soundcloud.com/petite-meller. | Links: soundcloud.com/petite-meller. |
| Wednesday's new band: Kongos. | Wednesday's new band: Kongos. |