Poèmes Pulvérisés
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Label
- Infiné
- Crybaby
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Release date
- June 6, 2025
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Pressing
- Original
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Conditions
- New
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Vinyl
- BioVinyl
- Clear
Description
Since Le Cirque de Consolation, her second album released in 2021, a seismic shift has occurred in Léonie Pernet’s life. The musician traveled to Niger to meet her paternal family, previously unknown to her. Upon returning from this journey, Léonie came across a line by René Char: “I took my head as one seizes a lump of salt and literally pulverized it.” This striking image stayed with her, leading her to Le Poème pulvérisé, a collection by the resistance poet published in 1945. It opens with a question: “How can one live without the unknown ahead?”
Choosing the plural, Léonie named her third album Poèmes pulvérisés, set to be released in June 2025 on Crybaby and Infiné. At the crossroads of continents, she connects the limestone skies of her childhood in the Marne with the deserts of Niger. From classical and electronic music to French pop, African and Arab rhythms, and experimental sounds, Léonie Pernet pulverizes form, language, and composition. Of what scattered fragments are we made?
She summons a unifying “we” to “repair the world a little,” merging genres, breaking down identities and borders, building bridges between North and South—from Paris to Brazzaville. Guided by a deep intuition, the musician calls for awakening, for a jolt, in a world on the brink.
Poèmes pulvérisés opens with a prophetic instrumental track, Brûler pour briller ("Burn to Shine"), where synthetic voices and electronic textures interact with a hypnotic orchestration—Léonie’s signature. Strings take the spotlight, and the spirit of Philip Glass hovers nearby. Actress Louise Chevillotte recites the opening poem from René Char’s collection, “born from a well of mud and stars.” The album’s intention is clear: to assert its instrumental hybridity and the urgency of poetic expression.
The album continues with entrancing anthems like Acid Niger, Touareg, and Paris-Brazzaville—electronic and percussive tracks that assert a vision of a borderless world. Léonie Pernet sings for those on the margins, the forgotten, the left behind. In Dispak Dispac’h, a piece born of her collaboration with director Patricia Allio, the voices of undocumented people at a protest ring out with a demand for justice, carried by Léonie’s persistent synths.
In this third album, Pernet also offers deeply personal and politically engaged songs—timeless refrains that already feel like classics. In Réparer le monde ("Repair the World") and Les Rênes ("The Reins"), she calls tirelessly for peace. Tracks like Je suis un souvenir ("I Am a Memory"), Le pas de l’au-delà ("The Step Beyond"), and L’horizon ose ("The Horizon Dares") explore the shards of identity and the past, striving to gather these fragments to build a new horizon. The final track, Nymphéas ("Water Lilies"), is like a whispered secret—both the key to the quest and the beginning of the path.
For this album, Léonie wanted to bring together collaborators dear to her, from film, music, and theater. Co-produced with Jean-Sylvain Le Gouic (former member of Juvéniles), a longtime creative partner since Le Cirque de Consolation, the album also features her friend Clara Ysé, who sings the backing vocals on Réparer le monde, and her younger brother Pierjean Pernet, who co-wrote and sings with her on Le pas de l’au-delà.
For the visual aspect, Léonie collaborated with Delphine Diallo, a French-Senegalese visual artist and photographer, whose work renews the representation of Black women, transcending the constraints of time.
Tracklist
A2_Je suis un souvenir
A3_Touareg
A4_Le pas de l’au-delà
A5_Réparer le monde
B1_L’horizon ose
B2_Dispack dispac’h
B3_Paris-Brazzaville
B4_Acid Niger
B5_Les rênes
B6_Nymphéas
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