Pecause spring evokes renewal, soft golden light, meetings on the terrace, there is nothing like the new album by Jeanne Galice, alias Jain, to come back to life, but above all to love! At 31, the Frenchwoman has a beating heart, you can hear it. After the tubes (Makeba, souldier… 1,2 million albums sold worldwide), a Grammy Award nomination for her music videos, her performance at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, world tours (three hundred dates, including the prestigious American Coachella festival), she has took a four-year break, settled in a fisherman’s hut in Marseille, to come back down to earth (and sea?).
However, it is towards a galaxy far, very far away, that she flies away in her new songs, born of a thunderbolt in full confinement. After the energetic pieces with irresistibly dancing melodies and African, hip-hop, pop and oriental resonances drawn from the sounds of his childhood spent between Congo, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Pau, Jain changes his style. Make way for the organic, dreamlike and orgasmic sounds of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna… Psychedelic, sensual, modern, joyful and catchy disco rock. In case of slack, listen The Fool, you’ll see… This third opus, still produced by his accomplice Yodelice, quite simply makes you want to love it. Encounter.
Point : After the success of your first two albums, you had a frenetic pace of touring and decided to take a break… Was it too intense?
Jain : It was intense and above all, I was no longer able to give everything I could give, it was frustrating. I had a Bercy that I preferred to cancel because I was exhausted and wanted to do it well… And then finally, it was canceled because of the confinement. It was a sign! A tour requires a lot of commitment, to be away from loved ones for a long time.
It was very tiring physically because on top of that, I was alone on stage with my machines, I was doing 1h40, 1h50 of show, alone therefore, and I didn’t have to screw up because there are all these wonderful people who work with me, who depend on me… They help me enormously but I also have to perform. I asked myself a lot of questions: Will I be able to make an album again? Do I want it? Do I like my life? What do I want to show people? What kind of artist do I want to be? What could I do if I don’t make music? I stopped my tour in Tokyo in August 2019, and the lockdown came soon after.
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What I missed the most during these five years of touring was that I no longer listened to music.
What’s the first thing you did after saying stop?
What I missed the most during these five years of touring was that I no longer listened to music when I got home, because I was doing concerts all the time, and I needed silence. So I rediscovered that. Starting to listen to whole albums again, like when I was sixteen. I stole all my mother’s vinyl records: David Bowie, Kate Bush and her The Kick Inside… I listened to them over and over.
I also needed to be alone. It’s not very intimate, a tour! It smells like a sock, we are constantly surrounded, moments of solitude are rare. So I rented a cabanon at Anse de Malmousque in Marseille, with a completely unobstructed view of the horizon with the sea, and I went there alone with my guitar. It was just a bedroom, really, so I really felt like I was back in my teenage bedroom, with my instrument, writing songs, being completely in control of my time… album was born in a slower time frame, where things came gradually, you can tell.
READ ALSORooftop session: Jain, melting pop
Why Marseilles?
I love this city. I grew up in Congo, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, where there is the sea, so I always looked for proximity to water and open spaces. In addition, I already had the idea of offering an album that would also be a Marseille tarot game…
You did indeed draw the album cover yourself, as well as tarot cards, one card per title. We get the cards when we’re worried about the future, right?
Only my mother draws tarot cards for me, I’ve never been to see anyone, so it’s not really a concern for me, but a moment of family intimacy. I was afraid of disappearing after this break, of course! We are in a world that moves very quickly. An astronomical number of songs are released each year. So obviously, I wondered if people weren’t going to forget me and if my musical proposal, so different from what I was doing before, was going to be shocking. But so far, the feedback has been very positive!
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You also published in October CityZena comic strip about an ideal and post-apocalyptic ecological city…
I had a comic book project for a very long time, but I never had the time… There, I was finally able to take action ! JI co-wrote the screenplay and the dialogues with my older sister Léa Galice, who introduced me to children’s comics and whose dream was to write one. Our publisher Dupuis gave us carte blanche, and the four-handed work was very fluid, every day we told each other the rest of the story… Then, Marcial Toledano and José Robledo did the drawings.
It’s an album about love, a first for you.
I fell very much in love during the confinement, it was a huge source of inspiration, so the album is about the feeling of meeting someone, having shaky legs and butterflies in your stomach. I had never written love songs. Before, I spoke of a very global, universal love, but not personal. When you fall in love, it takes over everything. To have been able to experience this so fully, without being on tour, without having any time or work obligations, is an immense luxury. And to be able to write it in song, to be able to take the time to question myself about my feelings… It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve had the opportunity to experience.
Everything is more difficult for a woman than for a man!
Female musicians often say how difficult it is to build a romantic relationship.
I think everything is more difficult for a woman than for a man! [Rires] I have the impression that we feel guilty more for not being present. And, yes, there are more men on tour, including the technicians, because it’s always more acceptable for a man to be away from his family than for a woman.
Even sex on tour for a woman is still taboo, contrary to the myth of the rock star man who sleeps with groupies…
Afterwards, we get a whole idea of the tour, sex, drugs, etc., but in fact, it’s not that glamorous.
You will soon be back on the road. What will change?
This album calls for something organic, warm, so there will be musicians on stage, which I’ve never really done before. So we’re going to reinterpret all the old songs like OKlike the new ones, keeping it super danceable.
The Fool (Columbia). On a festival tour this summer, then on a Zénith tour this fall. CitiZen by Jain, Toledano, Robledo, Galicia, Perez (Dupuis editions).