"After the Covid, we no longer have time to be pissed off, if we still had doubts on the question", summarizes Jacques Higelin's daughter to AFP.

The disc, released this Friday, is thus punctuated with songs that address the hips, between disco/funk ("Mon Cœur"), electro ("Etoile Noire"), Caribbean ("Pura Vida") or techno (" Outside/C'est La Vie").

"I wanted to make a record in pleasure, happiness and joy; in the past making records could have been laborious, for a year and a half sometimes, there I wanted to go quickly, to have an album like the photo of 'a moment', develops the one who is also an actress.

Unlike the four previous albums, Izïa, accompanied by her artistic partner Bastien Burger, left for the studio without a single draft song.

And the click happened from the first notes placed at the La Frette recording studio, in the Paris region.

This mansion houses the musicians during the sessions and has seen fine rock'n'roll specimens parade in recent years such as Idles, Nick Cave or the Arctic Monkeys.

This type of studio-residence recalls the glorious era of the Château d'Hérouville (50 km from Paris), which was frequented five decades ago by Elton John, Iggy Pop, David Bowie and Jacques Higelin (his parent to whom she refers to in "Royale").

"People Who Rule Us"

"La Frette, I usually say that he is the third member of the album, being in residence during a recording is a financial investment whereas today everyone has a home studio , but we had time to let creation come to us, it's so precious, I will only do albums like that, there is no photo".

Singer Izia Higelin in La Frette-sur-Seine, north of Paris, May 18, 2022 JOEL SAGET AFP / Archives

"At La Frette, it's as if all the songs already existed and were waiting for us, insists the singer again. It must be said that Bastien and I were particularly attentive; after all that we had been through, we didn't there was nothing left to lose, there could only be positive things".

Izïa's latest album, "Citadelle", released at the end of 2019, had received a good critical reception and raised a lot of expectations in an extension on stage destroyed by the health crisis.

Only the song "Pura Vida" was not born in La Frette but in Costa Rica.

"I had gone there on vacation in the middle of Covid, with lots of certificates to do, super-proud of my shot, but I was not in the right mood and life reminded me of it, the day after the 'arrival I broke my knee, forced to calm down, between hammock and walk in the forest, and there too this song appeared to me".

Between the bursts of life, the thirty-year-old also delivers some reflections on the passage of time ("Lavielamourlamort", "Le Remède").

Or a societal rant with "Who we are".

"I am clearly talking about the people who own three quarters of the planet's wealth, the people who govern us, who are disconnected from our reality, from who we are, from our sensitivity, beauty, poetry, who know nothing about beautiful things what we have to offer".

© 2022 AFP