Emilie Zoé alone at home, sitting across from the world, from the future, staring at a reflection in the mirror. After nearly infinite touring promoting The Very Start and a couple of records born from spontaneous collaborations (Pigeons with Christian Garcia-Gaucher, /A\ with Franz Treichler, Ossuaire with Abraham), it was time to take the next steps, Emilie Zoé’s own sequel.
Written with nothing else than grit, Hello Future Me is the result of 18 months of work between an apartment and a rehearsal room, looking for the imperfectly personal sound worthy of the name and to create vertiginous landscapes to get lost in. Self-produced and self-exploratory, this album expresses Emilie Zoé’s inner wanderings, delicately crafted with Emilie’s favourite tools: a guitar that just turned 60, a sturdy hand-made guitar amp, a dusty organ from a flea market and a broken piano.
This is also a collaborative effort, with a close team of cherished friends who have been there forever, at every step and every doubt in the process. Nicolas Pittet’s drums and voice here again support and raise Emilie Zoé’s bluesy riffs and melodies. Louis Jucker’s touch can be felt in every speck of arrangement and behind every squeaky button. Next to the old wood board flooring of the living room and the bedroom carpet, one can also taste the acrid air of the cavernous offices of Hummus Records, Kevin Galland’s care behind the small dying console, the ribbon microphones, the tapes rolling, the piles of dirty punk amps and synthesizers.
With Hello Future Me, Emilie Zoé takes a moment to meticulously rummage through a backpack full of thoughts and songs. The album rekindles with the near-sighted intimacy of the artist’s first lo-fi folk tunes, the floating sweetness of a ballad played on a piano, the electric intensity of a modified beefed-up guitar, hanging down so low that it exorcises anxiety, love, infinity, and the space-time continuum.
Thrown into the future as if they were a series of messaged bottles into the sea, these eight songs preciously carry in them an eagerness for change and a fascination with emptiness, self-doubts and shared dreams.