Two years after the amazing Sémaphore, one of our favourite albums of 2019, multi-talented artist Marion Brunetto aka Requin Chagrin returns with a dreamy, 80s-inspired torch song, “Déjà vu,” to announce the release of her third album. Following the maritime melancholy of Sémaphore, Brunetto reaches here for the sky as she draws inspiration from the celestial dome. “The inspiration came when I was playing with a borrowed Casio MT400v synth that I love,” she explained. “I wanted to talk about stars, especially the Perseids. It’s that moment around August 15th when shooting stars are lighting up the sky. It’s time to make wishes, to start all over again.”

“Déjà vu” also comes with a video, courtesy of director Antoine Carlier, which glistens like the most shining stars.

Whilst their sophomore album Sémaphore was released back in January this year (and stands as one of our favourite records of 2019), French dream-pop band Requin Chagrin, the brainchild of lead singer Marion Brunetto, have been touring extensively throughout France and working on the visual interpretation of their most recent single “Rivières”.

The track follows in a similar vein as a lot of their discography; deceptively upbeat, freewheeling surfer style guitars that hide depths of melancholy and heartache. There’s a yearning, a desperate sense of urgency and pining to “Rivières” that stems from those very same guitars. When they’re allowed to ring out uninterrupted, they entangle with Marion Brunetto’s vocals in such a way that the sadness is amplified.

Having said this, with “Rivières”, Requin Chagrin have taken what could’ve been an overdone metaphor – the image of heartache and sadness as drowning – and given it a physical embodiment that’s not overly melodramatic.

The lyrics do possess the majesty and poetry of the sublime. There’s a sense of being in awe of nature and an appreciation of the beauty and vastness of water. Brunetto sings “Au delà des ruisseaux/Oh les rivières n’ont pas dormi/Ton nom les déchaîne” which translates to “Beyond the streams/Oh the rivers did not sleep/Your name unleashes them”. This displays perfectly a consuming passion that she doesn’t manage to free herself from despite the passing of time. Deep in her emotional memory, she recalls the skin of her lover and, because of these trigger thoughts, she feels both vulnerable and aroused. The several metaphors of raging water and rivers beautifully express the sexual desire, her inner storms, and the difficulties to weigh the anchor and move on.

This is all beautifully encapsulated by the video accompaniment that shows the four-piece becoming steadily engulfed by water, the falling rain drenching them as they stoically play on with reckless abandon, becoming literally soaked in their own sadness. It closes with a singular warped note playing out as their equipment reaches the bottom of the now fully submerged room. Drowning in your own sorrows never sounded or looked so good.

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Requin Chagrin will be playing in La Boule Noire (Paris) on February 6.

Just like her moniker suggests it, Requin Chagrin (Shark Chagrin in English) depicts contrasted indie pop soundscapes, combining the strength of a ferocious predator with a seaside melancholia. Behind the oxymoron, one can find the mastermind, singer-songwriter, producer and musician Marion Brunetto. Brought to our ears a few years ago by the French vivid label La Souterraine, Requin Chagrin is now ready to unveil her second album Sémaphore on KMS Disques, the imprint of Indochine‘s frontman Nicola Sirkis. Unlike her self-titled debut project that she crafted on her own, Sémaphore is a collaboration with producer Adrien Pallot, known for his work for the likes of La Femme, Fauve, Grand Blanc and Moodoïd.

Taking distance from the lo-fi surf pop of her previous project, her new song, the title track of the album, offers a more sophisticated structure and a thicker sound. The summery, sepia-tinged echoes of this cocktail of dream pop and psych-pop can still be enjoyed on the beach though. This time, her coastal atmosphere offers a fascinating duality between complicity and rivalry, as seen in the the accompanying video that she co-directed with Simon Nozat. Watch below.

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