Clara Luciani, queen on stage

Le Regard Libre N° 46 - Jonas Follonier

On November 23, Clara Luciani honored French-speaking Switzerland with a performance at the Case à Chocs alternative music venue in Neuchâtel. Audiences, ranging in age from fifteen to fifty, were won over by this bewitching young woman, who, through her melancholy notes and suave voice, embodies more than anyone else our strange times. Spotlight on the 2018 French revelation, somewhere between Maurane and Lana Del Rey.

The time has come, and something is afoot. The artist's voice is heard in off to a short musical introduction. The musicians arrive, one by one. All young, all with interesting faces and looks. Clara Luciani makes her entrance in the same sober manner, positioning herself as a member of a united and coherent group. She, too, has a look unlike any other, with her slender silhouette, penetrating eyes, Claudia Cardinale-style mouth and fringe - just one of the many things she has in common with the equally exceptional Juliette Armanet, already mentioned several times in our columns.

Read also: A sucre d'orge evening at the Montreux Jazz Festival

Did we mention the physical, only the physical, in our first paragraph? Yes, and it's important. It's first and foremost a body that presents itself, as someone else might say. Even if, it's true, it's Clara Luciani's voice that first reaches us that evening. So now let's talk about the music, the most interesting element of this concert, of course, including the musicians' performance, the peculiarities of this deep voice, the lyrics written by the young woman and the melodies that stay in my head, again and again, day and night, I say to myself as I write this article. Sleep on my loudspeaker. The beauty of coincidence.

Deep, beautiful songs

That's what struck me the most that evening: the quality of these little pop gems, sweet as desserts that we like not to finish, to eat eternally, to kiss with our lips for a journey into the realm of intimacy, tenderness and comfort. Sleep is certainly my favorite, but I think it sums up Clara Luciani's talent. Her ability to deliver a sensual object that never tires, despite the simplicity of the lyrics and music.

«I have engraved on my heart
Your name and flowers
So that you may be here in your home
You'll be better off there than anywhere else
Sleep, sleep
Nothing to see here, nothing to regret
Sleep, sleep
I'll be coming to bed with you soon».»

And the way she interprets these ballads on stage is simply astounding, in that her gaze seems to reflect exactly what the text is expressing, and this gaze, this mad gaze, lingers on the audience until it possesses them.

The experience is even more powerful at the end of the concert, when Clara covers in French the sublime Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey. The adaptation is just perfect, the words carefully chosen by the literature enthusiast; each syllable is carefully integrated into the phrasing of the song, which is sublimated by the language of Molière. And Clara's language, when you see her pronounce her words, sends shivers of pleasure down your spine. Take a look at the video for Konbini:

With Strange times, another quiet song, Clara Luciani tackles an equally intimate, but even deeper layer of her work. This song from her album Sainte Victoire tackles the question of female identity in today's world. Is it easy to be a woman these days?

«What happened to your breasts
Your feline arch?
At times a nurturing mother
At times a vulgar whore
Behave, behave, behave like a woman
Like a woman
I don't have what it takes
Not the shoulders, not the shoulders
To be a woman of my time
We're really living in strange times».»

But perhaps it's not for nothing that, when asked by an approximate journalist if she is a feminist, the French artist replies that the song, in any case, wasn't thought of that way. If you think about it, the scourge of conformism - paradoxically the hallmark of our individualistic age - affects men and women alike. Clara Luciani happens to be a woman, all very well, but her art, as is the case with all successful art, is universal. With this eminently sober song, in which, both on the CD and in concert, only the singer's voice and her electric guitar chords are heard, Clara Luciani seems to have touched a whole generation. Her success bears witness to this.

Rhythm and riffs

The electric guitar: it's impossible not to mention it in an article about Clara Luciani, since it's her instrument. As we said, Strange times is the guitar-vocal part of the show, but a Clara Luciani concert is also an evening of dancing, since half of her repertoire is in a more rhythmic vein. Songs like The Flowers, We don't die of love or even The Bay, a highly accomplished cover version of Metronomy, that lets us enjoy the enthusiasm of the musicians accompanying the singer, who hails from a Corsican family.

«Women are naked
Men too
Nothing to hide
Nothing to hide
And fruit juice
Between their fingers
Comes and goes
I could show you
Getting there is easy
Close your eyes and let your lashes entwine
Here we are already
Welcome to the bay
It's not Paris
And it's not London
It's not Berlin
Not even Hong Kong
Not Tokyo and it's so hot
I'll take you to the bay».»

The photographers of Regard Libre, The cameras, the only ones of the evening, gave themselves over to these moments, immortalizing the atmosphere of a colorful concert, which is even better rendered in black and white. Let's give a lot of space to the images, then, because there's not much to say about Clara Luciani, just as there is about Françoise Hardy, from whom she admits to drawing a certain influence, since everything is already said in their songs.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Photo credits: © Indra Crittin and Loïc Seuret for Le Regard Libre