After many projects with various bands (emotive post hardcore act Fallaster and black wave project Medusa In My Knickers), Lyon, France based singer-songwriter Nicolas Gasparotto puts aside the screams and distortions of metal / hardcore to elaborate a very personal post-folk album, conceived entirely alone, from the songwriting to the recording, from the mixing to the making of the videos. Today, we’re super pleased to give you the first listen of PLEINE LVNE‘s new single “Foudre“, presented by an atmospheric music video above. The new track is a forerunner of his first album “Heavy Heart“, a hearty offering that deals with the weight that we carry every day. The weight of sadness, anguish, solitude, and the endless questions that creep in once night has fallen.
The video for ‘Foudre’ was filmed and directed by Jonathan Bouillauxat at Warmaudio in Lyon in March 2021. “Literally speaking, ‘Foudre’
(‘Thunder’, in English), sums up the whole spirit of the album: silently holding the helm, keeping up appearances, while the inner storm is raging.” – explains Nicolas. “Celebrating life despite the rain and storms, despite being struck by lightning time and time again, is a metaphor for our personal struggles, which are repeated day after day.”
Inspired by artists such as Bon Iver, City And Colour, Katatonia or Slowdive, on his new personal opus PLEINE LVNE reveals his inner troubles of the recent years in a refined album with for main configuration an electric guitar and his voice. Like a melancholic introspection, Heavy Heart lets the emotions of the soul resonate.
In PLEINE LVNE own words: “These songs needed to be recorded, and to be shared, so that others could relate to the themes, and to find sense and comfort in the music. The message behind Heavy Heart reminds us : we aren’t alone.”
Another new song “But The Sun” was revealed on September 10th:
“‘But The Sun’ is a nostalgic look at the past, when life was carefree until the sun went down.” – comments Nicolas. “What could better illustrate nostalgia than old home videos of family holidays, showing the peacefulness, naivety, and joys of childhood? This song has a very distinctive lo-fi sound. To illustrate this vintage aspect of the song, Nicolas started to look through old footage of his family home videos, recorded on Super 8 film between 1970 and 1990.”
Heavy Heart refers to four particularly difficult years that the artist himself, Nicolas Gasparotto, went through. Four years of battling his inner demons, four years of trying to defeat his consuming anxiety. Heavy Heart was the result of this battle, it was the price to pay to keep going. It’s a cathartic album, in the true sense of the term. All his own original work, from start to finish, the creation of this album was no easy feat.
The recording process started in Lyon in February of 2020, with Nicolas’s friend, Greg Castellon. After two recording sessions, Nicolas fell ill with a serious case of the flu which prevented him from singing for more than a month ; he was plagued by severe fatigue and incessant coughing. Recording the album was therefore put on stand-by.
Then came the Covid epidemic in mid-March 2020, and the first lockdown. It became impossible to resume the recording process, and so the project remained on hold. May 2020 brought the end of the first lockdown, but for various reasons, Greg Castellon could no longer help with the recording of Heavy Heart. At this point, Nicolas had two choices : abandon the recording of the album, or produce it entirely on his own. He decided on the latter option.
Nicolas had just moved into a new apartment, so he set up his home studio and started to record again, alone, in August of 2020. He decided to start over. Nicolas recorded ten new songs between July and December of 2020, seven of which ended up on the final album. An eighth instrumental piece was added at the last minute, and put a symbolic ending both to the album and the recording process. Nicolas finished mastering the album in February 2021.
During this long process, Nicolas never lost sight of his final goal. He needed to record these songs, and to share them, so that others could relate to the themes, and to find sense and comfort in the music.
