Who is Elodie Gervaise, the Berlin singer who is reinventing house music in French?

In recent years, we’ve seen a lot of strong aesthetics from the 90s and 2000s return to pop culture, such as rave, gabber, riot grrls and cyber-punk movements. In France, artists such as Joanna, Ascendant Vierge and Régina Demina are part of a gothic revival mixed with electronic. In the United States, it was Willow Smith, Olivia Rodrigo and Halsey who gave new colours to emo, the teen punk characterised by its lyrics focused on self-expression that emerged in the 1980s and dominated the following decade. 

 

Elodie Gervaise, rising star of synthetic pop and house

 

The melodies of the first EP (released in 2021) by the 30-year-old Franco-Australian singer exiled in Berlin Elodie Gervaise and her pictorial universe do not clash with this trend of wanting to revise her basics in beauty. In the video for her new single, IMYG (I’M Your Guy), the artist walks around in a black latex jumpsuit reminiscent of the cult cyberpunk saga 
Matrix
. A dark sci-fi universe that suits the mysticism of his songs well. In the photos accompanying her new house track, a hit, hedonistic and sung in French, Parfait, produced by the Berliner from South Africa Thor Rixon, she displays the full panoply of the Y2K revival trend, including rectangular orange glasses.

 

Madly anchored in her time, Elodie Gervaise composes songs on guitar and synth that address very contemporary themes. Among the tracks of his first EP, Syzygy (2021) , she sings about her anguish in the face of the ecological emergency and the lack of political action. In another track, Free Babe, she talks without taboos about the place that mental illness takes in a romantic relationship. The difficulty of creating links with other human beings seems to fascinate the young artist. The name of this EP, Syzygy , means a conjunction or opposition in astronomy. Syzygy is used in particular to speak of a magical situation where three celestial objects are aligned. This can concern the Sun, the Earth and the Moon. “For me, this EP means the connection, universal and intimate, from human to human. Tarot cards and astrology, from which I draw great strength and use as tools, guide my power. Like a cat, I live the night very well and I like the feeling of spontaneity that it can bring: the surprise of the encounters and the stories of the people I meet.”

Influences ranging from Sevdaliza and Yseult to Björk

 

For Elodie Gervaise, a bit of a witch in her spare time, the planets finally seem to be in tune. The singer-songwriter, born on the East Coast of Australia to a French father and an Australian mother, formed two psychedelic and lo-fi rock bands in Australia a few years ago, Galaxy Girls and Candy Lucid. She was also an architect in the land of kangaroos before moving to Paris to study music. “It was like another life. But both fields, music and architecture, offer sensory experiences and give us the space to feel things more emotionally.” 

 

Since she devotes herself solely to music, the question of space(s) has been paramount. It is indeed his double culture, between two lands that are very distant from every point of view, that inspires him to write songs that are both melancholic and danceable. “I grew up with Leonard Cohen, the Beatles and French artists like Jacques Brel. Later, when I lived in Byron Bay, I discovered a world of female strength through Big Thief, Warpaint and Mazzy Star or psychedelic rock with The Black Angels and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. Since then, Europe has awakened in me a sensitivity to electronic music. Today, I would say that my major inspirations are artists like Sevdaliza, Yseult and Björk.” The music of Elodie Gervaise, who recently covered a song by Joy Division on YouTube, evokes for her experiments and her lunar side both the Icelandic artist she adores but also Swedish synthpop singer 
Molly Nilsson
. Enough to bode well for the future of the Franco-Australian, especially when you know that the craziest thing the artist has done is to have taken LSD in a hot air balloon.

 

Perfect (2023) by Thor Rixon and Elodie Gervaise, available.