Paris (AFP)
He could not let down Alice, his "evil double": Arthur H extends the pleasure of this character he had played in the theater with a concept album with suave melancholy, colored with electro and auto-tune.
"Premature death of a popular singer in the prime of life", a winter 2019 play born from the meeting between the artist and the director Wajdi Mouawad, therefore finds a development in a disc that is released this Friday.
Arthur H played the main role, that of a successful singer in distress.
And we have to believe that Alice, the anti-hero he played - gold costume, peroxidized hair, dark glasses - ended up missing the singer-songwriter.
"I like Alice, my evil double, well no, rather the worst of what I could have become if the circumstances had been different; we always have tenderness for the worst version of oneself", confides to AFP Arthur H.
"And then, I find it difficult to give up songs, there it hurt my heart: we did a beautiful project with Wajdi Mouawad, a very funny, very crazy piece and all these songs written for this piece, I want to give them a new life, "he unrolls in his voice, rolling in the gravel.
- Baudelaire and auto-tune -
The album is a very good surprise, with biases, such as auto-tune, brilliantly noted.
The choice of this last process which tampers with the voices, acclaimed in urban music, could seem incongruous for a singer with a vocal signature so naturally recognizable.
"The auto-tune is a current color: if you want to paint a picture, there is no reason to prevent yourself from taking a color, it can have a very kitsch side, but sometimes it is also a little religious, like a cosmic complaint, there is a chanting side, "he argues.
Arthur H, August 26, 2021 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives
"At the beginning, the auto-tune was to correct the falsehood of the singers, with a smoothing effect, I tried and I really liked it, I had fun with it."
The son of Jacques Higelin pushed the game very far with this vocal filter by singing in his album "Recollection", a title taken from a text by ... Charles Baudelaire.
"Singing Baudelaire to the auto-tune, on paper, it may seem absurd: in real life, it is not absurd, it also expresses an urban melancholy, which corresponds well to Baudelaire, it brings out modernity and timelessness of the text ", underlines the musician.
- Carolyn Carlson and drone -
When the electro dressing, it comes directly from the various past confinements, linked to the pandemic.
In April 2020, Arthur H had participated in the album "Music for containment", a real soundtrack of a world living in a vacuum, with pieces of "ambient", this soaring, dreamy, sometimes worried music.
A collective project initiated by the electro artist Molécule.
The French musician Romain Delahaye alias Molécule in his studio in Paris, February 13, 2015 PATRICK KOVARIK AFP / Archives
"This + ambient + song (+ Paris la silencieuse +) made for Molécule, I had a lot of fun doing it, in a very small room in the apartment where I spent the confinement, with a kind of excitement. to do a song on my own, then I continued with this record (+ Death of a singer ... +) in the same place with the same material ", he explains.
Now he can't wait to forget the computer screens for a while and find musicians in the studio or on stage.
He also offered a striking collaboration during the summer with the famous dancer-choreographer Carolyn Carlson for the future clip of "Nancy", piece of "Death of a singer ...".
The American dancer and choreographer on September 7, 2018 on stage in Biarritz IROZ GAIZKA AFP / Archives
"Carolyn Carlson is a fantastic woman, very powerful, with absolutely extraordinary energy, at 78 years old, very expressive in her dance".
The video is already salivating, since to hear Arthur H, it is a funny ballet-duel between the dancer and ... a drone.
© 2021 AFP