Music
Who is… Petite Meller?
Meet the peculiar Parisian turning psychoanalysis and arthouse cinema into big, jubilant pop music.
Petite Meller
© [unknown]
There can’t be many pop stars studying for an MA in psychoanalysis at the Sorbonne who’ve kissed a giraffe in Kenya, but Petite Meller is one. After her NYC Time and Backpack seven-inch singles started the buzz in 2014, the Parisian with the peroxide pigtails bounced into clear view online in February 2015 via Baby Love, a jubilant piano-house anthem with a video shot in Africa that starred inquisitive local fauna and some seriously talented school kids. Recently, she reminded us that we’re all animals in Barbaric, a French filtered-disco banger that Kylie would have given her gold hot pants for. A full-length trip into magical Mellerworld is set for 2016.
Watch: the video to Petite Meller's Barbaric.
When I was a child I used to sing and perform in my room, listening to jazz records and falling asleep between them. But the first time I performed onstage was in a summer vacation Club Med contest in the south of France. I came second and won a milkshake.
I grew up listening to records by Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington and Van McCoy, but French chansons artists like Chantal Goya and Charles Aznavour were always playing in the background. My mum used to sing their songs like they were a life or death situation. Then my dad got me into Club Med-style pop music.
A career in pop music came to me by coincidence; someone invited me to come onstage and then I suddenly discovered where I belong – where I’m most myself. It was very obvious to everyone and while I was studying philosophy, I started to write songs during classes, hiding them under my seminar papers. Since cinema is my passion, I find it natural to combine sounds, visuals and philosophy in my videos.
I’ve always had a vivid imagination. When I was a child I would get lost in cinematheques, sitting in the dark and dwelling inside my fantasies. Even in kindergarten, I convinced everyone I could do magic with an aquarium full of water. I used to imagine every stair on the road is a stage and performed songs to myself while tap dancing.
Petite Meller from the Barbaric video
© [unknown]
My visual style was always inspired by classic cinema – movies like Visconti’s Death In Venice, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita and by Alfred Hitchcock and David Hamilton. Recently, the story of the riddle of the Sphinx inspired the lion-licking posture and the choreography in my Barbaric video.
I think being too civilised holds us back from richer life experiences. I’d like people to not be afraid to live their crazy dreams, to be responsive to their desires and unconscious fantasies. And to not suppress feelings so much in order to fit reality’s norms. But what is funny is that we are barbaric – and you can see it in my video.
I think my sound is evolving. I take my genre – nouveau jazzy pop – and try it with different producers who inspire me. On Barbaric and Baby Love I worked with Jocke [Joakim] Åhlund, a brilliant musician from Stockholm; we wrote those songs in his studio in Sweden. He collects old records and loves the ’70s aesthetic, so I think that was affecting me, too.
Watch: the video to Petite Meller's Baby Love.
For my debut album, I’ve worked on a lot of songs with Jocke and with the writer and producer Craigie Dodd, who works out of a studio in London called The Dairy, which is funny – the name of my album is Milk Bath. There’s also a song on the album called Grace, written by Shamir.
For me, life is a series of absurd situations. Everything is linked. Laughing, singing and fantasising are really the only things I can do about it. I believe in the saying, “Je veux être la muse de ma muse” – I’d like to be the muse of my muse. I wish I could be eccentric. I’m very shy and repressed; the only time I’m close to that is on stage, when I feel more free to be wild as in my fantasies.
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