Belgian singer-songwriter Nicolas Michaux is today sharing his new single ‘Nos Retrouvailles’, the latest to be lifted from his forthcoming album, Amour Colère which is due for release on September 25, 2020 via Capitane Records.
Following on from April’s ‘Harvesters’ release that found support at The Line Of Best Fit and marked Michaux’s first piece of new music since his 2016 album, À la vie, à la mort, ‘Nos Retrouvailles’ positions as another melancholic cut for the artist, doused once more in swathes of nostalgia. Recorded and produced by Michaux, who is now based in Samsø, Denmark, and his faithful collaborator, Morgan Vigilante, the new single captures an ageless charm finding a sound in the same vein as Alain Souchon and Andy Shauf. The track draws on traditional French chanson whilst touching on themes of love, grief, separation and reunion in this or another world.
Recorded in Michaux’s first language of French, the lyrics, which draw on pastoral imagery translate to paint pictures of romance: “Two pure diamonds under the same straw hat / In the darkest night / I long for the day of our reunion”. The accompanying video comes directed by Simon Vanrie and was filmed in Brussels on an industrial park with Michaux and Vanrie looking to draw parallels between the poetic vision of the track and the visual piece, harnessing the point where love and nature find a home amidst the world of a previous generation.
Speaking about the music and video, Michaux says: “I began writing this song in 2016 when I first went to Samsø. It was sunny in the tiny courtyard of the house that we were renting at the time. I finished it three years later when I returned to Samsø Island and made an acoustic version before producing several months later the version which figures on the album.”
“It’s a bit mysterious, the song, but also well balanced. I hardly feel I wrote it. It was always there. Discovered rather than composed. It lends itself to several interpretations and that’s what I like about it. It has more than one voice.”
Nicolas Michaux, who has performed previously alongside Damon Albarn and Tony Allen, is both a singer-songwriter and music producer. Born and bred in Belgium, he now divides his time between Brussels, where he is part of the musical collective Capitane Records and the Danish island of Samsø where he lives with his family. Michaux, who sings in both English and French, sonically segues between the great era of the French “chanson”, the American songwriters, 60s British rock, and the early new wave finding guidance by a distinctly personal spirit. His production style paints vivid sonic pictures rooted in an intimate knowledge of his instruments and the textures they evoke.