When Christophe Miossec surfaced 25 years ago, his insolence sometimes took precedence over his shyness. At the time, he launched his first album, Boire, a collection of punchy songs in acoustic punk mode, recently re-released. A quick quarter century later, a certain serenity will have diminished Miossec’s insolence, if not his shyness, while the tides and winds of Finistère will have chiselled his face.
Confined like all of us last spring, Christophe and Mirabelle Gilis, his collaborator and companion since the album Mammifères in 2016, took advantage of lockdown to create four songs for two voices. These songs, grouped together in an EP entitled Falaises!, have just been released by Columbia.
Mirabelle, the multi-instrumentalist who leads the trio Les Amirales, along with her collaboration with Miossec, composed the music and judiciously adorned it with violin and synthesizer. It is of course our Brestian fiftysomething who wrote the lyrics, and his talent as a lyricist is undeniable.
Falaises! opens with “En”, a poetic assessment of the quarantine chanted in duet, with a melancholy violin at the end. Gilis’ exquisite voice blends delicately with Miossec’s misty tone. The couple continues with “Elle a”, a bounding assessment of a young woman who has everything she wants, but doesn’t know it. Then comes “Tout ira bien”, a gentle and encouraging tune… with reservations: “Maybe not tonight, maybe not tomorrow, but everything will be alright”… “Trop d’amour” paints a moving portrait of a “fragile man who walks on water, or at least he thinks he does.”
These four titles were crafted in a wooden hut in Locmaria-Plouzané, on the shores of the Iroise Sea, with a helping hand from François Joncour, a musician friend. We wish for the Gilis-Miossec couple to continue on this path, without having to be confined again.
