#modzik

[possible-streetwear]

M.I.A - MODZIK

[louiseverneuilupdate]

Louise Verneuil for Modzik.

(2020)

Interview here

A true rising star of a French pop that is both classic and insanely modern, Louise Verneuil brilliantly mixes French and Anglo-Saxon references on her very successful first album Lumière Noire directed by Samy Osta (Feu! Chatterton, La Femme, Juniore...), a record that is both vibrant and intimate like the single "Love Corail". Meeting with the beautiful Louise...

You are from Ariège, you spent your adolescence in Nice, your grandmother was an Andalusian Gypsy, your uncle's and your father's Gibson who took over the Beatles: are all these elements important in your musical journey? What have your family and this sunny youth brought you?

Louise Verneuil: “I am a self-taught artist who arrived in Paris at the age of 22 to make music. Paris was the landscape of this album, this project, my twenties but I drew on my memories, my heritage and my values to create these songs and this album.

The love of my family, this family nest I never really leave. My father gave me my first guitar, my mother my first hums, my uncle my first vinyls. Everyone sings and dinners very often end in guitar and melodies.

In Lumière Noire I talk about my great-grandmother "Emerencia", an Andalusian, the first woman freed from my memory.

Even in the realisation of the songs, or in "L'Evadée-Belle" we find Maghreb drums and Spanish guitars.”

Everything is there, the roots, love everything that never really leaves us. And those who never really leave too.

You land in our musical landscape like a beautiful indie pop-rock amazon, what are your icons and your major female influences (musical or other)?

Louise Verneuil: “There are already all the women in my family. Strong, free, feminine women. I took their names to keep them with me and give me strength.

Then there are many authors, composers, muses. I think of Karen Dalton, Joni Mitchell, Billie Holiday, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Frida Kahlo, Nico, Françoise Hardy, Anna Karina, Françoise Dorleac. Lovers, shovels, loners, characters, lively sharp, inspiring, inspired... Beauties, sublime but also supercharged. I love madness, smiles, even hidden behind melancholy.”

You are both a self-taught songwriter: how did you start in music? What was the trigger for you?

Louise Verneuil: “The click is that I was not happy when I arrived in Paris. I decoded my discomfort by drawing on my wildest dream, that of making music. I was already writing since I was little but playing an instrument and composing on it and came along. When I missed songs, I had no choice but to make them myself...”

Was your Lumière Noire album more inspired by London or Paris? Have you been carrying these songs in you for a long time?

Louise Verneuil: “Paris Lumière Noire is the transition to adulthood, that of young girl to young woman. These ten songs were chosen to represent a moment of my life, moments lived, heartaches, sentimental disappointments, moments of solitude in my small apartment, far from mine. Sometimes some songs are more than 6 years old. But we needed this catharsis, we had to remain authentic at all costs, proud of my career, give this from me to the public, to my music to present myself well.”

What are the main themes of your album? Where do you get your inspiration from?

Louise Verneuil: “The themes are those of a woman's life. Sentimental setbacks, sensuality, abandonment, the drunkenness of memories, also freeing oneself from an established female model, drawing on her resources, her happiness, her misfortunes.

Love in all its nuances remains the main theme but Lumière Noire is also finding the positive in the negative, brilliance in each defeat, beauty in melancholy. In the end, it is a real philosophy.”

You publish your first album in your victorious thirties: is it a real luxury to take your time?

Louise Verneuil: “In this society where we get tired of everything, where we consume everything to consume it, it was important to reconnect with a certain tradition, a true heritage of French music. Take the time to find yourself especially, to know how to say no, do not regret failures and choices, learn from your mistakes. It was hard, patience taught me patience, sometimes I had no choice but in the end, everything guided me to be there today. I am convinced that everything has a meaning.”

What did your time at The Voice with Bertignac bring you?

Louise Verneuil: “Honestly, the show wasn't for me. I found myself in this war machine, made up and styled like a pretty doll without really being able to express myself, decide, digest. Too young, too sensitive, too cute, category hated by the general public and staged by the channel. Fortunately, Louis took me some time under his wing and allowed me to see clearly the work of the text in particular. I remember taking a long time to make him read my songs and he was the first to tell me to sing my (evil) words after 10 refusals of songs sent by others. What I like about him is that he knows how to find consistency in us. I was a singer, and after him I assumed myself as an author.”

You live between London and Paris, how do you manage this great geographical and cultural gap?

Louise Verneuil: “Precisely it is very inspiring. There is great freedom in London and a lot of poetry in Paris so the shock is sublime to live.

I can go from one state to another very quickly only by taking the train and I feel free to be excited after a departure or arrival.”

How was Samy Osta's choice made for the realisation of your EP and your album? Can you tell us about your collaboration? What did he bring you and how did you work together?

Louise Verneuil: “Samy is one of my most beautiful encounters. I went to see him in his studio and we quickly became very close friends. We spent a year in the studio to make Lumière Noire.

Samy was incredible, in his way of bringing his dough without abrupting me, without distorting the songs. He insisted that I play the piano, the guitar knowing that at the time I didn't think I was capable of it.

You should know that the songs when they arrived were completely "messy". We took back their bones, we shook them sometimes, had moments of madness and laughter too and we kept the essentials.

It allowed me to flourish and realise myself as an artist. It is a really beautiful moment suspended in time and with a crazy freedom that we have lived.”

Your music is both deliciously outdated, yet at the same time as timeless but also insanely modern: what is the secret of mixing as surprising as it is terribly catchy?

Louise Verneuil: “I have listened to myself throughout these years, I have always made bold choices, never simple. I think there is no secret, there is only truth.

This album is as I am, as I have been over the past eight years, I now let the songs make their way and reach people's hearts.”

Your voice mixes hoarse accents, a muffled side and crystalline flights: did you always know you would be a singer?

Louise Verneuil: “I was terrified of singing in front of people until I was 20 years old. I locked myself for hours with my guitar in my room, I sang with my hairbrush but unable to do it in front of an audience. My parents had to insist for a long time that I open my mouth. It was only in the small family universe that I let go. I think there was so much truth in this way of expressing myself that I was filled with modesty. Over time I kept this feeling but tamed it to finally no longer be afraid. Sometimes it grabs me by the throat, often even but it's always a good sign.”

Your video "Love Coral" exacerbates a very 60's/70's and DYI universe reminiscent of Super 8 homemade movies: do your visual and musical inspirations go hand in hand?

Louise Verneuil: “Yes, there is always a nod to the 60s. 70. But that's where the comparison stops. I love mixing the old with the modern, in my music as in the visual. But I don't feel like I've got the wrong time especially with the daily battles we face. Every hard-won freedom is always a permanent struggle.

I allow myself in my work to make references to an old cinema technique because this is the cinema I love. I always listen to who I am and I am in no way trying to follow a fashion. But working in analogue especially in video once again requires patience and also reactivity to results that can only be seen once the film has been developed. It increases creativity and is a unique result. That's what I like.”

You have a natural and sexy chic: what is your relationship with fashion? Do you have favourite designers or brands?

Louise Verneuil: “I am a big fan of French fashion. Designers like Saint Laurent, androgynous and feminists, all in sensuality, the timelessness and chic of Chanel, the iconic radical of Paco Rabanne, monochrome and Courreges materials. I also dress a lot in second-hands for a matter of budget, originality but also ethics once again in this ultra-consumer society. My mother was a lover of thrift stores and flea markets so since I was little, I bathe in this ancient universe of pricking blouses in Manou, my grandmother in her closet that smelled of naphthaline.

I can't talk about fashion without mentioning my best friend for more than 20 years who founded his brand Studio Clandestin with the same concern to change mentalities and habits. He created a concept in addition to his Laboratory creations where we can even send our old clothes and make new models.”

[celebratingwomen]

SZA for Modzik Magazine

[wearetheholifuckers]

interview MODZIK

[butimacelebrity]

Dua Lipa for Modzik Magazine

[houseofbase]

interview MODZIK

[fidjiefidjie]

Bonne soirée 🩷👌🩷

Aurore et Pomme 🎶 Everything Matters

(The Gods We Can Touch)

[t-ylaaaa]

[aurora-daily]

AURORA for Modzik by Nicolas Guérin | March 2022

[todiscus]

AURORA for ModZik

[h-f-k]

5 fave Halsey photoshoots?

ooooh i love this question!! they have amazing photoshoots and my short answer would be all of her album photoshoots but to change things a bit i went with these:

flaunt magazine 2. glamour 3. the advocate 4. rolling stone (iconic) 5. modzik magazine

[atuats-sidechick]

tagged by @lilrobinbird (no worries! Love being tagged by you <3 Ty!)

Last Song: Aurora and Pomme - Live on Rhythm, by Modzik, but I had to check 'cause I never pay attention to what I'm listening

Favorite color: I don't really have a favorite. It depends on the context, medium etc. But I only wear black (I'm lazy)

Last Movie/Show: Currently watching The Bear and Hilda

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: Savory (with lots of spice)

Last thing I looked up: water quality in Rio de Janeiro -- it's for a wip, but honestly, I wish I hadn't read about it

Current Obsession: my dog (always), Kyoshi novels, Toh, and this new Japanese restaurant near me

Last Book: Currently reading three: (1) Maim Your Characters, by Samantha Keel, (2) Trickster Makes This World, by Lewis Hyde, and (3) A Biography of the Abyss, by Felipe Nunes and Thomas Traumann. I need to get back to fiction asap! This is grueling!

Last fic: @ozais-lobotomist's "Your existence is enough" (nice and angsty!) with amazing art by @lilrobinbird

Looking forward to: Drinks and gossip with friends tonight!

No pressure tags: @nova-leaf and @joodeegemstone

[duadaily]

By Unknown for Modzik Magazine - 2017

[clatzstoriesphoto]

Dua Lipa for Modzik, 2017

[styleofdiamandis]

                 PHOTOSHOOT: MODZIK MAGAZINE

Modzik is a Paris-based magazine which featured Marina on their June 2019 cover! The photoshoot, which took place at the Hotel Grand Amour, was taken by Enzo Orlando.

Styling by Clélia Cazals, hair by Anita Bujoli and makeup by Helena Henrion, respectively.

We’re starting off strong with a very hard leather look. The black lambskin bomber jacket with shiny patchwork puff sleeves is from Dutch designer Ronald van der Kemp’s Spring/Summer 2019 Haute Couture collection which was paired with a Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2019 paneled leather skirt.

As in accessories, M rocked a suede version of Agnelle’s leopard print gloves.

Dutch emerging designer label Ninamounah created Marina's Howling red patent croc-embossed over-the-knee Western boots for their Fall/Winter 2019 "Evolve Around Me" collection!

Such a dreamy shot! Here, M rocks a Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2019 beige cotton zip-up blazer with contrasting white peak lapel.

Her long crystal shoulder duster earrings are part of Vivienne Westwood’s Spring/Summer 2019 lookbook.

It’s getting wild! Belgian emerging designer label LĒO created Marina’s cropped croc-embossed white patent leather jacket with swinghooks! It’s from their Fall/Winter 2019 collection titled “Trance”.

Both her tiger print silk pencil skirt (pictured in grey)...

...and leopard print brocade pumps with oversized buckles are from the Rochas Spring/Summer 2019 collection.

For the penulimate look, Marina lounges in one of the most eye-catching pieces from Fendi’s Spring/Summer 2019 runway show! As worn by Kendall Jenner, it’s the Zucca logo-embossed white leather oversized bomber jacket with large zip side pockets.

Her “Citizen” multi appliqué black lambskin leather gloves are fruit of the collaboration between French menswear designer Louis Gabriel Nouchi and Agnelle.

A pair of black patent leather ankle boots with round buckle detail and perspex heels from Mulberry's Spring/Summer 2019 collection completed the look!

And last but not least, Marina poses in the Ninamounah Spring/Summer 2019 Termite grey wool blazer bodysuit with baroque pearl buttons.

The rest of her look is from Dior’s spectacular Spring/Summer 2019 presentation. It includes her pleated ombré organza midi skirt...

...a single star and faux pearl curved gold-plated brass earring...

...an elastic polyester J’adior cross-over headband in beige (which she styled into a choker)...

...this stunning crystal leaf and gold brass logo bracelet...

...and, last but not least, beige cotton ankle wrap ballet flats with J’adior lettering.

[y0uh4v3b3ensh3rl0ck3d]

Aurora x Pomme - Live on RHYTHM BY MODZIK