Créme solaire: Calicanti
Crème solaire, the Swiss electro-punk duo made up of Rebecca Solari and Pascal Stoll, present 'Cemento', their third album. The 11 multilingual songs explore, through the metaphor of concrete, the uniformity and alienation of society and the relationship between humans and nature.
Concrete and cement suck. They’re grey, they’re hard and most of the time they crush beautiful green things that grow. But sometimes, some plants find their way into the cracks, managing to blossom and bloom despite the greyness. And that's something to be celebrated and encouraged. That's what Crème solaire do on 'Cemento', where the band use that metaphor to explore normativity and resistance. With highly catchy bangers ('Calicanti', 'Sguardo'), but also through harsher tracks (the hypnotic beat of 'Anormal', the borderline metal-inspired screams of 'Balade') and dreamier soundscapes (the superb closing track 'Chaos'), they evoke the struggle against convention, encouraging us to embrace singularity and authenticity. Throughout 'Cemento', the duality between human identity and nature is also analyzed, evoking diverse images to illustrate this complex relationship as well as the possibility of becoming multiple characters, of extracting oneself from this reality.
But rather than being a distraught statement of fact, "Cemento" is above all an invitation to metamorphosis and empowerment, to "become flower" (“devenir fleur” in French) as they say. And that's the crux of the matter: these are songs to get the audience dancing, united, sweaty, for us all to resist, together.
Because Crème solaire have never been so catchy. While the tracks on 'Cemento' are still brimming with the duo's eclectic influences, from glitch to trap, there's also a new pop conciseness that gives the record an incredible urgency. Still imbued with a strong punk ethos, the album is also imbued with the playful humour that characterises the band. And there's always the use of multiple languages (5 on the record), sometimes even within the same sentence ("sopra la pisse des hommes sad and stanchi" on "Calicanti"), always at the service of a wonderfully absurd and rebellious poetry.
Since their debut album 'Bleu C'est Bien' in 2019, Crème solaire haven't really taken a break. After an EP ("Bébé?", 2020) and a second LP ("Pannenstreifen Ist Ohne Pic-Nic", 2021), they played just about every stage in the country (from squats to Paléo Festival) and beyond, carving out a remarkable live reputation. In the spring of 2023, the duo began work on 'Cemento', recording it at the Dbprod.art studio in Cheyres (Switzerland). The instrumental parts are the work of Pascal Stoll, and the vocals and lyrics of Rebecca Solari. David Brodard mixed the album and Grégoire Pasquier mastered it at Studio de la Fonderie in Fribourg (Switzerland).
Next stop for Crème solaire is Eurosonic Festival in Groningen, Netherlands on Jan. 17.
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