Quotes

Même si la fille que je joue dans le film, Selma, vient de Tchécoslovaquie et est obsédée par les comédies musicales hollywoodiennes, même si l’action se passe en 1963 et que le ton du film est très nostalgique ­ alors que moi, je préférerais utiliser des rythmiques techno ­, je ne me suis jamais sentie à l’étroit dans cet exercice. Cette musique, elle est censée représenter l’imagination de Selma. Dans le film, elle est la seule à pouvoir entendre la musique, tout se passe dans sa tête.

The lyrics to ’I’ve Seen It All’ were not written by me, but it was a project that took three years and I actually enjoyed to leave me and be obsessed with this lady called Selma. And I sort of fell in love with her, to be honest. I felt honoured to be the one who was expressing her heart.

Were you inspired by Einstürzende Neubauten when you wrote the song "Cvalda" ?

Yeah. When I was pregnant I visited a Neubauten-concert. The foetus started moving vigorously because of the loud music, so I had to run out of the concert hall. But I still like Neubauten, they’re a great source of inspiration for me.

i remember the melody of "l’ve seen it all’swirling in my head
for a year or two, with parts of the string arrangement tailed
behind. i remember perhaps a ecstatic and not so sober
evening in london singing it full force underneath one of the
bridges in a marvellous reverb
and i would like to make a confession, at the time i was
listening nonstop to " pavane pour infante defunte" by ravel
i got deeply inspired by the mood of it, the majestic grande
humility is enormous ! after expressing muscular "homogenic" it
was a delight to settle for the search for enormous gestures
inside immense gentleness. ... or at least try....

I think it taught me a lot about craftsmanship.
it’s probably the most challenging thing I’ve done
with the 80 piece orchestra,
and just to give an example...
most of my songs on my previous albums have had 20 tracks on
each song. The film soundtrack had 110 tracks on each song.

It really helped me to mature...
and "discipline" me.
It’s something I’ve been looking foreward to since childhood.
To sit down for so many months and be so detail-y...
and specific musically.

I think that’s where my true love is.
I’m more of a craftsman.

is a melody that had been swirling in my head for a long time
i was trying to make some clarity
so just simple fifths and see through chords
like when you stroke glass and there is that clear sound
and no luggage
a new beginning

Today I’m very happy I went to music school during ten years as a girl. It wasn’t that pleasant back then, I wanted to make music about the present, I wanted to write about emotions and love. I didn’t want to play music about nostalgia made by dead German composers all the time. I was rebelling against being forced to play Beethoven, Bach and Mozart.

Sometimes I thought school was just a waste of time but at last I realized it was important. School is there to teach things that are important to know to be able to deal with everyday things and communicate with other people, things that you might have avoided otherwise.

That was exactly what happened to Selma. She was a Checz immigrant during the 30s who acted out her great passion for musicals, by turning sounds from chairs and factory machines into music.

I did three solo albums in
a row in the space of five years and they were all about me and they
felt quite narcissistic. I was ready to give myself over to something
else. I had this hunger to get really academic and maybe use more of my
classical education on the project. But I wanted it emotionally to be
someone else’s.