Exclusive album premiere of ‘Métempsycose’ by ethereal folk artist Sophia Djebel Rose, out March 21th, 2022.

Somewhere between Buffy Sainte Marie’s ‘Illuminations’, Nico’s ‘Desertshore’ and Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes work, Sophia Djebel Rose gives us a first album to rank among the unclassifiable of folk music. Minimal and abundant, austere and generous, classic and baroque, Sophia Djebel Rose has succeeded in this gamble of combining the extremes, but it seems natural if we are willing to consider that some whispers have the force of a cry.

‘Métempsycose’ is made up of nine titles which are odes to forests and the earth, lullabies or songs of hope. Entirely recorded at home, on the high plateaus of Auvergne (middle of France), the album delivers this light specific to the mountains in which it was born. The artist says she often feels an intimacy with the world around her, insects, rock, the very small and the very large. So this idea of metempsychosis, according to which our souls travel through beings, allows her to explain this intimacy with the world. Because ultimately that’s what this album is about: our belonging to the Living.

<a href="https://sophiadjebelrose.bandcamp.com/album/m-tempsycose-2">Métempsycose by Sophia Djebel Rose</a>

“I live in a temporality where the salient points are emotions”

Would you like to talk a bit about your background?

Sophia Djebel Rose: I’m half of the psychedelic folk duo An Eagle In Your Mind with which I have been on the road touring for five years. And now I’m working on this solo project in parallel.

When did you decide that you wanted to start writing and performing your own music? What brought that about for you?

It’s hard to tell when exactly you decide something, it looks like things are growing up slowly in spite of you, and one day it emerges. But one major event maybe – I was studying philosophy in Lyon, and one day under the bridge of the quays of the Rhône I met with guys playing a jam, I stopped and I sang with them till the sun rose. It was the first time I sang for a public – or rather I would say for the lost and the wandering souls who were hanging out at this late hour. I was 22 years old and I loved the fact that this space was like a non rule space. I remember people coming out of work, putting down their working cases, and improvising with us.

“This album is about light and wildlife”

When did you start working on the latest album?

I am very bad with numbers and dates, I live in a temporality where the salient points are emotions. Somehow I started writing this album when I left town to the countryside. There is something that opened up at that moment. This album is about light and wildlife. And it’s an album that I dedicate to all those who live in the peripheral areas, to all those who follow parallel and irreverent paths.

“Words are weapons”

Every song tells a certain story. Would you like to talk a bit about your songwriting approach?

I am influenced by the great poets of the French language – Charles Baudelaire, Paul Eluard, Léo Ferré. Words are weapons I think. I’m also a big fan of Leonard Cohen poetry. He wrote this text ‘God is Alive, Magic is Afoot’ which served as the introduction song of one of my favorite albums – ‘Illuminations’ by Buffy Sainte Marie, which is technically, musically, poetically and existentially a masterpiece.

Can you share some further details how your latest album ‘Métempsycose’ was recorded?

It was recorded at home in a week or so. Before entering the studio I had about ten guitar – voice songs, very bare, in a fairly classic folk vein. The recording week was intense. Many things emerged at that time, pulling the album to the weirdest folk fringes. I used an old tape delay, an Indian harmonium, and organs. I recorded some haunted choirs. Raoul, with whom I worked, added analog synth lines, a bit of bass. Even if everything remains minimal and austere there is something baroque in this album.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Musical crushes are rare. The first one dates from a time when I was not making music, it’s Half Way Home by Angel Olsen. And the most recent is Sarah Louise, whom I discovered with her solo instrumental 12 string guitar album and who blew me away with ‘Deeper Woods’ which is an album of psychedelic folk of rare creativity.