- 2023-12-04
-
MUSIC
-
MIKA Releases New Album “Que ta tête fleurisse toujours”
British singer-songwriter MIKA released his sixth studio album “Que ta tête fleurisse toujours” on December 1, 2023.
This time, he made the album in French. It is his first body of work in four years since the 2019 album “My Name Is Michael Holbrook”, without the 2023 soundtrack “Zodi & Téhu, frères du désert”.
Also, it is his first album fully in French.
The album comprises a 12-track, produced by Renaud Rebillaud, Marso, Jérémie Tuil, Éric Chevet, Alex Stacey, Tristan Salvati, and Martin Lefebvre.
He lived in France until he was 7 years old, and two years ago, he decided to create the album that reconsiders his relationship with the country in his life.
MIKA said of the album, “I have an identity that has always evolved and changed. The French-speaking part of my life really took its place and I wanted to dedicate an album to that.”- MIKA continued, “You will really get into my head and my life in relation to my relationship with France. It's the beginning of my life, it's my youth, my childhood, a certain challenge and also the death of my mother. I didn't want to express this important part of my life in English. I didn't want to pretend to be a Frenchman. So I kept all my particularities, my accent, my mistakes, everything!”
He added, “The album is very pop, very melodic, extremely joyful, very intimate. It's not an intimacy that's morose or melancholy at all. It's wide, it's free.” -
MIKA explained about some tracks for the album.
“Jane Birkin”
“It's a tribute to Jane Birkin, but it's also about a lot of other things. I haven't often written songs using anyone else's names, especially not well-known name. I did it once with a Grace Kelly. Here, I did it with Jane Birkin. Why Jane Birkin? Th song is about being free. The song is about daring, being yourself, expressing yourself, being honest, being poetic, being daring, daring to be daring, while remaining poetic and artistic.
Well, here we are, describing Jane Birkin. In my opinion, she's a woman, a lady who artistically and also humanity, has always had this ability to express herself, to play with preconceptions of things, to talk about art, to sing in her own way, to write in her own way, the way she played in her films, to talk about sensuality, love, sex, all that, but always remaining extremely elegant and poetic, this mix is also has a little of her anglo-french accent. Of course she's a woman who has always really intrigued me, and who I've always liked when I've seen her from a distance through my screen, throughout my adolescence and my adult life.
You can be yourself, and if you want to be yourself, you have to be brave. And if we have to be brave to be ourselves, we also need icons to inspire us. And you could say I'd like to be a bit like her or like him. well, I say yes Mika, I'd like to be a bit more like her.”
“Apocalypse Calypso”
“The song is a love song. A super hyper romantic, charged sensual love song, but it also has this kind of otherworldly, vintage, futuristic feels, there's all these arpeggiated sins.”
The video director Chris Turner said of the video, “I was given access to a huge selection of beautifully strange artworks to use however I liked. The solid bronze couch - so heavy it needed a forklift to move it - is a sculptural representation of the late designer Jan des Bouvrie's iconic Cubic sofa; the imposing sculpted angel wing piano created especially for Mika; a glittering globe, hand-crafted from half a million coloured Swarovski crystals. Pumpkin lamps with hand-blown googly eyes; Giant bronze magnifying glasses. We even got to cover Mika head-to-toe with Job's trademark papier mâché finish. Combine these with Mika's inimitable style - check out the suit made from 6000 custom-made mirror tiles - and you have a wonderful set of ingredients to work with.”
“C'est la Vie”
“It's like she's (his late mother) summarizing two and a half years of writing. She talks about death and celebrates life. This mix of 'happy sad' is super important in pop. It metabolizes sadness so that it becomes something more beautiful, more useful. This is a fundamental rule. If you take away the choruses, it's the most depressing song in the world!”
Background photo by Danilo D'Auria - source : Apple Music
