Pomme started penning the songs for her album Consolation shortly after receiving the award for Female Artist of the Year at the French Music Awards (Victoires de la Musique) in February 2021. Set for release on August 26, 2022, the new album follows her acclaimed sophomore effort Les Failles, released in 2019.
While the pandemic prevented the musician from promoting her album on tour, Pomme finally resigned herself and found the drive to write again for what would be her third album. Feeling drawn to electronic sounds, Pomme reached out to Flavien Berger to shepherd her through this unknown territory. That’s when it all clicked or “the planets aligned” as she puts it, as Flavien had himself been looking to explore a more folk side, which the singer had been honing for two albums now. They teamed up in November 2021 to record Consolation that same month. The album, produced somewhere in the Canadian countryside, focuses not on «what was going wrong» as did Failles, but rather on «what makes you feel good».
The new project alternates between discussions about her childhood and the women that inspired her, two themes that logically come together under the creative spark of Claire Pommet, aka Pomme, also credited as producer. Written in the Burgundy countryside, as well as in Paris, Montréal, the Île d’Orléans in Québec and Ontario, Consolation was first devised as a piano-vocal album. The synthetic and electronic textures Pomme aspired to, would follow, adding that level of maturity and expressing the artist’s ambition for renewal while staying true to her core identity.
Just like addressing a phantom member, Pomme delivers a yearning cry to the late singer Barbara with « B. » and projects herself with Japanese Spirited Away hero Chihiro Ogino in « la rivière » (editor’s note: the river). The singer looks to honour all the women that adorn her life, determined to shed a light on the beauty of life to a friend who had stopped believing in it with « septembre », or to revive the spirit of Quebec author Nelly Arcan in « Nelly », while also revisiting the little girl she was in « jardin » (editor’s note: garden) and « dans mes rêves » (editor’s note: in my dreams.)
Consolation became the central theme, as it «led me to stories of women that moved me, stories loaded with great tragedy, sadness and injustice. But it’s also a concept to do with childhood.» Graced with melancholic and peaceful nuances, that the earlier song « magie bleue » (part of the Failles Cachées bonus album) had provided an insight to with Flavien Berger also contributing, the new track « bleu » carries those familiar tones that Pomme had already accustomed us to.
If Les Failles already signalled Pomme’s aspirations for self-empowerment and writing her own music, Consolation sets her on another level as an artist and producer, confident and determined to prove she hasn’t run out of ideas. The intricate and perplexing Consolation expresses the joy that stems from grief and thereby marks the rebirth of Pomme from her beautiful ashes.
