Interview

Izïa, an album after the disappearance of Jacques Higelin

Izïa © Dominique Charriau / Getty Images

10/12/2019

She is not even thirty years old and already four albums to her credit. Izïa, the daughter of Jacques Higelin continues with Citadelle its electro-pop minimalist moult and validates again the choice of the French language. A disc full of plumb, grappling with emotions as direct as contradictory, conceived in Calvi, and especially crossed by the absence of the father.

RFI Music: Are the events, in this case the disappearance of your father and the birth of your son, who dictated the mood of the album?
Izïa: What is certain is that this is a very personal album in which I put all my story, all the events related to the past two years emotionally intense. I could not do otherwise, I had to be closer to my feelings, sensations, put meaning in what I do. This record is full of all that and it helped me in my artistic and human journey. I went as far as possible to do justice to what happened to me. It's not a decision I made, it's a little bit anyway, the specific artists to put their intimate experience for the benefit of creation.

In Metal Dragon , you say, "As long as I hear your voice / All goes" . It is immortal for you, in a way?
It is through several prisms, my words, those of people, his music, the archives, the memory in general. People often come to talk to me about his concerts, moments when some people have met him in their lives. I'm not on the defensive, it makes me feel good. There is of course the absence, the lack, the sadness of not having it by my side, but I am lucky that it exists in the heart of people and mine forever. It's not given to everyone to be able to hear about him all the time. I feel his presence, I know he accompanies me, he monitors me.

Is he your hero?
He has been a marvelous companion, an ally, a brother, a father, a friend, a figure, an example. We had a real fusion, we really found each other. I looked a lot like him and I think he saw a lot of him in me. He was in a period between two records and it took many years to make another one. So, he had a lot of time to spend. As for the few most formative years of existence, he has been incredibly present to me.

You evoke it without pathos. It is not in the Higelin's DNA, lacrimal emotion?
My father always gave me this lesson: death is part of the way and the cycle of life is an eternal beginning. Here again, it was essential to transmit this philosophy to me and to prepare me to manage the post. I was pregnant when he left, four months later I gave life, I do not believe in chance. I miss him every day, but I do not want to celebrate him in sadness. Anyway, and you're right, he would not have liked that.

We also hear the voice of your brother Arthur H on Trails ...
I wanted to bring together people who were important in my father's musical history. Arthur, obviously, whose voice always upsets me so much. There is also Dominique Mahut on percussion and who has been a faithful to my father for many years, the brass section Journal Diary that accompanied him on his disc Love at first sight and during his last tour. It's a piece that exists through lots of people who loved it and helped it to always excel.

Dominique A and Jeanne Added, with whom you sing respectively in duo Shemale and Chevaucher , it's your musical history?
In Metal Dragon , I speak of talismans and there, I wanted to disseminate others, a little like living protections that would form only good energies in this disc. Dominique, I've admired him for a very long time, I listened to him a lot and I still listen to him. I always thought that I would collaborate with him one day. When I composed Shemales , the melodic lines reminded me of his way of singing. As for Jeanne, we are intimate and strong. I saw it a long time ago, alone on bass. His turner is one of my closest friends. I consider her a big sister. For me, it is best French artist currently, the most complete and with a voice to fall. This piece about freedom, it was almost obvious that we do it with two because we share the same convictions.

"Your emotions rise too fast / Your feelings fall too fast / To go from laughter to tears so quickly". Is the song Trop vite a self-portrait?
A form of exorcism. I still feel with time, and thank God, for being less and less like that. But it's something I needed to expel and sing. When the single came out, I received a lot of messages from people who recognized themselves in there. In the society in which one lives, everything is exacerbated and it is not easy to be in a kind of carelessness.

Always in the same piece: "You so need that we love you / That you forget to love yourself".
Having to assert myself, having the feeling of being accepted, I went through these phases of interrogation. It's even something I'm still working on. I have the impression of having had a rather singular road and to trace my musical path apart. Sometimes the need to belong to something catches up with me. At some point in my life, I was merciless to myself, completely denigrating myself. Today, I realize that my singularity and my go-getter are my strengths. I am more soothed by life. I really have to be sweet with me (laughs).

You have moved from English to French in your last two discs. Has this change in gear opened other perspectives?
This was done during the design of the album The Wave . I told myself that I would be half English, half French. I put up barriers for a long time, maybe because my father had set the bar very high. We're freaking out a bit, we're in a panic. When I started to succeed in writing certain texts - even if I think that today The wave was only the beginnings and the beginnings of where I wanted to go - I took so much pleasure to write and sing in French. The words immediately reach people in a kind of instantaneity and it's so much more jubilant. I never think of going back to English, except if I'm asked for duets or covers.

The transition to electro-pop is thoughtful too?
That's how I want to show myself, that my voice wants to exist. On stage, the pieces live still differently. I could very well go back to rock, but not that of my first two albums because it seems to me quite connoted in the past. The first was very seventies rock, the second most produced, but still enough inside. Going to organic sounds is for example possible in the future. I leave myself the possibility to evolve according to my desires and my needs.

Why does this go-getter drive you?
Because it's almost survival. But I overflow with doubts and goes through serious challenges. You must not think I'm afraid of anything.

Is not your spontaneity both a strength and a weakness?
More strength, whether in the cinema or music. I can have a lot of flashes, first convincing jets and in connection with my initial desire. We imagine that I always say what I think, but I say one tenth, I do not want to put myself in the shit (laughs).

Izïa Citadelle (Barclay) 2019
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By: Patrice Demailly

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