Laure Briard is a French musical artist – who sings in English, French and Portuguese. To describe her music as being a part of a specific genre would be an oversimplification of her ability to weave through multiple generations and styles, sometimes all within the one song. With the release of her new album “Ne pas trop rester blue” (Don’t stay too blue), here is a look back on her career as a whole – which has been 10 years of incredible art. (Spotify playlist of all tracks mentioned)
Laure’s career in music started with her first official release, “Laure Briard chante la France” an EP made in collaboration Julien Barbagallo, a great solo artist who is also the drummer for Tame Impala and POND. In the short 20 minute piece, Laure showed early signs of her ability to cross decades and genres between each track – the production helmed by her and Barbagallo was the seed for all her future projects and set a high bar. This is most obvious in track 4, “Fashion Victim” – which has an 80s sound which sounds like it came from Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell’ album (especially “Eyes without a face”). The song, sung by her and Babagallo is a great starting point in her career, to recognise both how naturally she was able to make great music early in her career, and as well, how much she has progressed as an artist.
For the instrumental loop, here are the last 30 seconds of the track for your listening pleasure.
With a 4-track EP under her belt, Laure started work on what would become her first studio album, released two years after under the title ‘Révélation’.
Working this time with Julien Glasc, Eddy Crampes and Benjamin Glibert, Laure’s music built upon the first EP in so many ways. As before, Laure masterfully weaved between genres in this album – mainly falling into indie and psych pop – but with a unique touch that makes this album stand out, even with the many releases done in the 7 years since this albums’ release. Almost completely sonically different to the track you heard before, take a listen to “C’est la vie”. In this track you can hear the foundations from which her exploration of Brazilian and Portugese music stemmed from, but more on that later.
As the album continues, the theme and subject matter emerges a little bit more, the complications and difficulties of romantic relationships and the fear of ‘loving too much’ is an early message, that builds in sophistication as we hear more of the record.
Into track 4, “Je m’en vais” – “I’m leaving” – a short track that delves into her duality of Laure’s feelings towards a partner. Over piano, Laure sings “I love you, I love you, but I’m angry, I’m leaving”.
With each new song on the album, there is a new sound being explored, a prime example of this is tracks 5 and 6. In track 5 “Tout est foutu” – Laure talks about differing expectations between lovers over a grunge/punk type instrumental, with slight distortion on each aspect of the song. Into track 6 “Holidays” – Laure’s first English language release, she sings softly over a more laid back instrumental about her partner and their lack of connection, a distance created by both metaphorical and physical seperation. While both covering similar subject matter, the songs sound completely different – sung in different languages in almost opposing sides of rock/pop.
In one of the final songs of the album, “Ca va aller” Laure continues this lowkey tone to sing about the sides of a relationship. In the first half, the song starts off with a optimistic tone – evoking nature and landscape as Laure does in many of her songs – “Close your eyes, you’ll be fine, under the blue sky, we are happy.” – on the second half, the song and the relationship takes a turn “After the clouds, after the storms, that’s the way life is, you walk away, I’m here, you don’t see me”. In this video, edited by Laure herself, the visuals shot on film beautifully accompany the music.
There is a constant theme on the album that is seen in many of the tracks, Laure writes about the idyllic start of a relationship, and then the tragic separation of it. But even with separation, there are still strong feelings remaining. Throughout her whole discography, Laure weaves a masterful retelling of the nature of human relationships – they aren’t black and white, they can be messy and beautiful, they are the backbone of the human experience. Sonically through both instrumental and writing, Laure uncovers the many layers of love and their intricacies – a prime example being the final track ‘Cabreton’. Laure first sings over the sounds of waves and piano – “In his eyes, calm and deep, like the atlantic, love is there”. In the latter half of the song, drums, bass and guitar emerge and the tone shifts completely – the second verse is told completely instrumentally. This song in a way is the perfect representation of the album as a whole – one of duality.
Révélation was a huge step for Laure, compared to the sound of her first EP. It featured her first composition sung in English, and the first structured composition that tackles a concept throughout the entire album. It would be the foundation for her career as a whole – for everything from her instrumentals, – to her subject matter, aswell as her collaborators. It is a stand out in her discography and one of my favourites of hers, an incredible achievement for someone who had only previously published 20 minutes of music.
The following year, Laure released another 4 track EP – titled “Sorcellerie” or “Witchcraft” – which was made in collaboration with Michelle Blades, an incredible rock musician who, like Laure, touches on many genres in her music. Mainly though, her music follows psych-rock, and the influence is heard throughout the entire EP. Overlooked in her discography as a whole, this EP is another example of Laure’s progression as an artist. It serves as an evolution of her sound but also the subject matter the touches upon. Moving from pop to heavy psychedelic rock both in writing and instrumentals, it is a real marvel and a terrific EP. Past this, her and Michelle have continued their creative pursuits together, with Blades directing and shooting a number of Laure’s music videos.
First off – Laure’s second English composition, “Dreams”. Michelle Blades’ guitar shines on this track – as does the bass, the production is completely unlike anything we had heard from Laure before. Accompanied by a beautifully shot video.
Switching styles completely, singing over a flute and soft percussion, here is “On dit que je ne suis pas sage” (We say that I’m not wise/sage). A cover of a song by Jeanne Moreau from 1998. Here is her version of the classic track.
On the final title track, Laure’s vocals are shrouded by the synths and drums – singing “We float in space-time, drifting towards eternity, surrounded by solitude and darkness”. A song that epitomises the beauty of her writing and music as a whole.
Comparing this last track to what Laure had released before, it is almost night and day. Instead of a complete focus on love in a relationship, she writes about an existential dread and the propensity for love. It has a more mystical feel about it, which is pretty obvious from the title of the EP – touching on the divine and spirituality.
With the help of Blades, Laure achieves a sound akin to some of the more psychedelic pieces on ‘Revolver’ – especially ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. With the more psychedelic subject matter, Laure again breaks new ground in a sonic and writing sense – a complete wild card in her discography as a whole and an incredible project from beginning to end. It is worth noting that at this point in her career, she had only released one album – only 4 years into her career, and she had already covered such a wide spectrum of music.
Laure and Michelle – Video: Marcelo Perdido // Midnight Special Records
Alongside these official releases (and within the LPs/EPs too), Laure has released many covers of artists that she takes inspiration from. Many of Laure’s influences were early pioneers of rock-pop-jazz, a prime example being Margo Guryan. Guryan’s ‘Take a Picture’ album released in 1960 is a criminally underrated masterpiece that weaves between many genres in a similar sense to that of Laure – and while the two have unique sounds, their ability to explore all these different musical avenues sets them apart from their peers. The more recent release ’27 Demos’ from Guryan in 2001 builds upon the legacy of ‘Take a Picture’, unveiling a variety of songs in their early form and a collection of many other previously unreleased tracks. Taking a step away from officially released music, Laure has also composed a variety of covers, a few of those to Margo Guryan’s music – here is the original track ‘California Shake’, recorded in 1958, and Laure’s cover, released in 2013.
Moving back into her official releases, in the same year as ‘Sorcellerie’, Laure released her second studio album “Sur la piste de danse” – “On the dance floor”. Like her first studio album, where her writing touched upon the duality of the human experience, Laure expands on this idea both in writing and production – often having the two oppose each other to create this duality in both in subject matter and in composition. There are a lot of creative differences between this album and her first, an example being the spoken word passages that occur on some tracks (Sur la piste de danse, Le roi du rock’n roll, etc.) – from early Jazz and Soul, with groups like The Ink Spots, to 70’s French pop, with artists like Jane Birkin, to the modern day with Laure Briard.
Throughout this album, her progression as a writer shines through, with a focus on introspection and darkness through metaphorical settings – even the album name “On the dance floor” would suggest something very lyrically different to what we find in these songs. On a more personal level, Laure uses love and relationships as a platform for delving into her own strengths and shortcomings – this even extends to the perception others have on her, most notably in the final track of the album.
This track sets a real tone for the rest of the album, where the vibe of the instrumentals will directly oppose that of the lyrics. And in this case, even the lyrics oppose each other on each line. “On the dance floor” lulls the listener in with the suggestion of a dance floor being a positive, but it is merely a setting for Laure to sing about the confusion and spiralling nature of overthinking – which is mirrored by the instrumental. At the end of every verse, a guitar comes in and changes the tone from her soft recount of the dance floor to something more menacing. Following her style in Révélation, the song plays both sides of the coin, shifting from upbeat and positive to the complete opposite. The lovely video is also directed by Michelle Blades.
On track 4, the evolution of Laure’s writing prowess shines, with ‘The King of Rock and Roll’, which, as the name would suggest, takes a more conventional rock approach instrumental wise – which is not a commonality in her discography.
A song filled with great lines, especially: “A silver wreck embraced by a last ray of moonlight, And the macabre testimony of a disturbed love, Between a man and the road, because it’s his asphalt throne”. Above is a live version, performed in 2017 with ‘Boogarins’.
Once again creating this dichotomy within a song, the instrumentals are upbeat and the cadence of Laure’s voice follows this – but the subject matter is intensely personal and completely the opposite of the feel of the track. Talking about herself in the third person, from the perspective of others and her own perspective, with lines like: “Laure is too sentimental, sometimes she loses it, loses the pedals and locks herself in spirals” – “Laure has had it tough, tears, the hard life… joys and sorrows, mostly sorrows”. In what is likely her most personal track to date, the lines between what people say about her and what she says about herself are blurred – here is “Laure”.
In another terrific album, Laure expands her repertoire in many ways, from the sophistication of the production, to the introspective nature of the writing. Now two studio albums into her career, she showed an incredible range in the subject matter she focuses on, as well as the sound of each track. Songs like the last one we just heard, “Laure”, are why this is such an incredible project – but it’s effect on the future of her career were felt a year after its release.
In 2017 whilst performing at SXSW, Laure met a group who would become a huge cornerstone of her future projects – Brazilian psychedelic rock band ‘Boogarins’. Started in 2012, the Boogarins have had a lot of worldwide success and have collaborated with a whole host of artists. Luckily for all of us, one of these artists is Laure Briard. After meeting and becoming close with the band, Laure toured with them in Brazil, and began to write songs in Portuguese – as well as collaborate on music with the group. Out of this, came her first Portuguese project in 2018 – Coração Louco – or “Crazy Heart”. As an introduction to them, here are a few songs by Boogarins:
Picking out specific tracks from this EP was really tough, all of the songs are incredible – and for different reasons. As is hinted at in the title track, the project mixed this Brazilian folk music feel with a more grungy, technical and glitchy aspect to the music. Both are almost on completely different ends of the musical spectrum, but their pairing makes for an incredible sound. But beyond that, there are stretches of the EP that are completely unlike these genres.
In “Numa Fria Noite” or “On a cold night” – the foundations of spoken word passages laid down in her previous albums makes a further jump, to an avant-garde 8 minute recording that are snippets of studio recordings, but still maintains a cohesive feel.
From the start of the track, where they are riffing on the title phrase, to the middle where Laure is delivering a spoken word piece, to the end where you can get a glimpse into the relationship between Laure and Boogarins, with them joking around and experimenting during recording. If you compare a recording like this to what we heard on “Laure chante la France” – you wouldn’t think it’s the same artist. It has been repeated over and over in this essay but with each release Laure is reinventing herself and her sound, all to such a high level.
In a different vein, the next track “Janela” almost sounds like Laure channelling Broadcast, an incredible band from the 60’s. Again, the contrast of soft bass, drums and piano with glitches, snyths and what almost sounds like a modern day recreation of tape loops is such an amazing technique.
Above is the final track, ‘Cravado’ – which is still to this day Laure’s most popular track, on her first project in a language she doesn’t speak. The amazing music video was directed by Clement Leblanc.
What an incredible project and another huge surprise in her discography, I love it so much I had to chose tracks at random to not play because it’d take time away from the rest of the essay (which is already ridiculously long and probably hasn’t been read to this point by anybody). To write music in a language for the first time and have it surpass the heights set in her previous projects just goes to show the magic that this collaboration created. The album touches on familiar topics to Laure, from self worth to relationships, and beyond. With the tone shifting between tracks, we can grasp a deeper understanding of Laure’s own personal development and the effect that her relationships have had on this growth – the title track is such a great example of this, which touches on difficult tests and how they have only made her better.
An interesting note that Laure mentioned in her video series in the lead up to the release of her most recent EP “Eu Voo”, was that for the writing period of some of these songs, she was using ‘Tramadol’ – an opioid – to treat pneumopathy. During this time, she felt a mystical connection with an Afro-Brazilian goddess of the sea, Yemanjá. It is interesting to thing how this experience would of shaped this work, but also her next album.
A year later, in 2019, Laure released her third studio album “Un peu plus d’amour s’il vous plait” – “A little more love please”. As the name (and cover art) would suggest, it touches on familar topics – with an emphasis on the sea/ocean. I have seen a few people call this album her masterpiece, and I would find it hard to argue against. Without a doubt it is Laure’s most consistent project and one which reaches new heights – achieving a more polished sound, but one that is still unconventional and everchanging, as we have come to expect from her. When you really pick apart the instrumentals from each song, you can really appreciate how far she has come as an artist – each instrument feels like the peak until you hear the next song. Especially the drums and the bass lines, which stand out the most.
Opting for violin on this song, a rarity until this album for her, Briard compares the symbol of the lonely sailor with herself – “Perpetual agitation of the sea, your lonely heart is so similar to mine” – to eventually declare “I sail with the wind”. There – immediately a theme emerges that follows through the entire album, the ocean and the sea.
This continues in another great song on the album, “Love across the sea”. Behind the story of lovers and their separation, she touches on some important points of self-worth in this next track. – declaring “I want love to mean freedom and eternity”. But to continue on with this theme, she ends the song telling both the listener and herself – “Just catch the wave, don’t be afraid – you just have to catch the wave”. It shares these lines with a classic track from legendary Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim – “Wave”. Let’s listen to Laure’s track and a legendary collaboration between Antonio Jobim and Frank Sinatra.
The production on this album really connects so well, with this sort of holy trinity – where on a lot of the songs the drums, piano and violin come together and create this really amazing sound. They all bounce off each other so well – especially on the next song – “Someone” which also has a great bass line.
The third English language track on the album, it is really a perfect example of Laure’s music and her ability to compose such cohesive music. The lyrics touch on this theme of the ocean and waves again – as well as this sort of veiled unrequited love. As the name of the album suggests – the subject matter is based around this theme of absence of love. Most literally put in the title track, which is the last song on the album – to me, the best on this album in terms of writing, instrumental and vocals.
The writing on this next song is potentially Laure’s best work in her entire discography. It seems like it encapsulates all of the themes from the mystic and psychedelic – to the eternal themes of human experience and love. In a way, it is a proclamation and a request – asking for people to connect and unite, and to love each other a bit more. It is so amazing to me because I connect to the message so much – listen and read through some of the (poorly translated) lyrics:
“Let’s mix, Let’s intermingle, In this vast cosmos, Our energies in osmosis, Multicolored
Let’s mix, Let us intermingle, In the immense space, Where all the colors dance
I evaporate, I am you, You are me, My brother, My sister, Give me, A little more love please” (rep.)…
An album that many say is her masterpiece, I can’t put into words how much I love this work. It represented the most cohesive project from Laure up until this point, it is the first album of hers I heard and got me to explore all her other works.
Following on from this, she moved back to her newfound love for Brazilian music, by covering a song by Sessa – an incredible Brazilian artist that is a master of Bossa Nova. Here is ‘Grandeza’ from his 2019 album of the same name, as well as Laure’s cover:
Following on from this, a year later she released her second full Portuguese project – “Eu Voo” – “I fly”. Recorded again with Boogarins, as well as her long time collaborator Vincent Guyot, this album expands on the groundwork laid by Coração Louco. It sounds sonically different and has this mystical feel to it that reminds me a lot of Sorcellerie, especially in the writing. Check out the music video for the title track.
The writing in the above – “Eu Voo” – evokes a lot of themes that we have heard Laure touch upon – love and the power of the ocean. “Sadness that goes away, from a past love, leaves a vivid mark – I’m crossing the ocean (repeated), I’m flying”. The production has this really great Bossa Nova, almost free jazz sort of feel.
The writing from her collaborator Dinho Almedia (who also plays guitar and sings on this song) is absolutely genius, with Laure’s vocals and the bands great production doing it justice. “I wanna wake up quite early, With the world rising, And the sun opening itself, Birds smile at me, Just to show me, That after the end comes revival – I’ll put sweetness in disgust, Won’t be a fool anymore, And go back to feel, That my friends remember me, And stop thinking that another place is better than here”. The whole production style is laid back but not understated, “Passaros” is one of my favourites from the album for sure.
Though the production on “Supertrama” evokes something much more easy going, the lyrics portray the opposite – “Who left, who didn’t lie, who loved you” which is something we have come to expect from Laure and her music. The piano really shines on this track, as well as the ensemble of backing vocals from Boogarins members – which wasn’t used much by Laure prior to this album.
Eu Voo as a project is such a huge high in Laure’s discography, a mystical and psychedelic experience that is so special – with great cover art too. At this point in her career, she has managed to find more avenues for her creativity to flourish – through her collaborations and her own experiences. Throughout her career, themes emerge that seem to all coincide on this project – especially in the writing which is the most sophisticated yet.
Starting in 2022, Laure released numerous singles leading up to the birth of her new album (and her two children), which would culminate in February of 2023 with the release of her fourth studio album “Ne pas trop rester blue” (“Don’t stay too blue”). In the leadup to the release, she explained that the writing process was born out of a trip into California’s desert – while her past albums have kept an optimism through some of what is bleak subject matter – Laure takes a much more poisitive route with this album (as you can grasp from the album name). What is resulted is Laure’s most cohesive and impressive project yet – which feels like a culmination of all the styles written about above. 10 years since her first EP release, she has progressed as an artist in an incredible way.
Setting this optimistic tone in the first single, Laure singles in English (about love), accompanied by beautiful visuals by artist Lou Benesch.
“Something inside me begs me to hang on
Something inside me keeps repeating
Keeps repeating
My love is right
My love is right
My love is right…
Through my souvenirs I never realize love was so hard to give
Please don’t blame me for being myself
For being myself”
In a major progression to her music in a sonic and writing sense, this album features the most exploratory and far reaching avenues of Laure’s discography. This is matched alongside the great music videos created, a prime example being the very Lynchian title track directed by Ruby Cicero.
“The strange glass half empty perspective
To sum up life
If you’re thinking of leaving, why bother thinking
You might as well not say anything more
Fixate on the momentum to move forward
It’s still better not to stay too blue…”
In a manner somewhat opposite to some of her darker works, Laure takes a more forgiving, yet still nuanced, approach with this title track and the album as a whole.
On the next released single, Laure shows a very important aspect of her work, which I have touched upon a few times above, the role of nature in her writing. The track “ciel, mer, azur” (sky, sea, azure) sets the tone for the rest of the album which uses nature and landscape as a way of conveying beauty and human emotions.
“Between the azure, sea, and the bright yellow sun, The slightest space fills with green, Lush nature, You have conquered my heart by your sweet savagery, Your joy, Your music… I will never get tired, I will rush to see the sun”
In this 60’s French Pop inspired track, Laure continues the themes of love and nature in a very interesting music video, directed by Benjamin Marius Petit. It is a testamanet to her writing ability in the sense that she creates these lush and vivid atmospheres with only a few lines “The smell of your hair, Became the smell of my skin, After spending days here, In the middle of nowhere, Only the sound of the birds, Sometimes the wind”.
What becomes even more apparent as the song goes on is this connection with the overall optimistic theme of the album, facing positivity through heartbreak – “Looking for adventures, Reasons for living, Journey after journey, I will know better about me, Trying not to think, About the end, And possibly I’ll never see you again, It’s hard to keep in mind, The wonderful memories”. And the beautiful ending line that is repeated “Even if it hurts, To turn magic into tragedy”.
Adding onto the stellar writing is Laure’s most expansive production yet, which touches on many styles and genres, as the tone shifts from track to track. The below tracks “Not Evil” and “Au duable le coeur arraché”, are the shining examples of the huge leap in production, thanks to Laure and her team, including longtime collaborators Vincent Guyot and Julien Gasc.
It has been a real honour to be able to go through the career of someone who I admire so much, someone who is innovative and criminally underrated. Her music plays a very special part in my life, thanks Laure for creating such beautiful music. Thanks for reading.