MAGAZINE

Device converter



Weather

 

Classified ads

Put an ad on this website

Recently added

articles > Culture events

Lou Doillon
Culture

Lou Doillon: "the daughter of" and "the sister of", but not only…

By Justine Frétigné
05/02/2016

Lou Doillon was born in Paris, in 1982. Her mum is the British actress and singer Jane Birkin, her dad is the French film director Jacques Doillon and one of her half-sisters is the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg. You guessed it: her childhood was out of the ordinary.

Charlotte Gainsbourg et Jane Birkin
Charlotte Gainsbourg et Jane Birkin in 2011

The young Lou struggled to impose her personality among a dynasty of artists, often wondering "What the hell is that?"; but she also enjoyed being “surrounded by people who needed to create no matter what people thought”. Benefiting from a “family in a turmoil of freedom and creation”, Lou tried her hand at drawing, singing, acting, modelling and progressively found her path in life. She has now appeared in dozens of films and TV series, has modelled for numerous brands and designers (such as Givenchy, Morgan, Mango or Karl Lagerfeld) and is a well-known singer and songwriter who in 2013 won the Best Female Artist Award at Victoires de la Musique.

Her first album Places – released in 2012 and produced with the famous French singer, songwriter and record producer Etienne Daho – was a great success. She is now releasing Lay Low (out in the UK on 4 March), which was recorded in Montréal in collaboration with Taylor Kirk, from the Canadian group Timber Timbre. Lou did not know him before contacting him for Lay Low, but she had felt that they were part of the same music family: like her, Taylor "does not praise technical skill or precision". "When recording the album, we often had a go at  Olivier Fairfield because his drums were too drummy", remembers Lou. "All the musicians were laughing out loud, but we like drums when they sound human and vibratory", she explains. "I find the digital mechanical frequency too robotic", she adds. Lou also likes the idea that all her musicians can have their own space in her concerts: she defines the circle, and they are free to move in it as much as they want, which makes every live performance unique. 

The result is a fresh pop-rock album, which features 11 titles entirely composed by Lou Doillon, and which is sprinkled with a few dissonances and rythmic irregularities. One of the songs, "Where to start", has already been chosen by Jean-Marc Vallée as the soundtrack for his next film, Demolition, with Jake Gyllenhall and Naomi Watts. 

Lou Doillon will be performing at Bush Hall, London, on the 27th April, and she is really looking forward to it (so are we). London has always been very special for her, and even almost "sacred", since she considers having been raised in France with her mother "like the daughter of an immigrant". 

Sticky Fingers
Sticky Fingers in Kensington

“I have a very childish relationship with London”, admits Lou. “When I come here, I like to go to places I used to go to when I was a kid: sauntering in the streets of Chelsea, feeling the buzz of High Street Kensington, going through crafts and antiques at Green&Stone (on King’s Road), shopping at Brora and spending hours at Sticky Fingers, which is a kind of disastrous Planet Hollywood owned by Bill Wyman, former bass player of the Stones”. “Even my food tastes are regressive here”, confesses the singer. “I eat mostly quinoa anywhere in the world, but when I get here, I am starving for bangers – most preferably the poor quality ones, which are actually getting quite hard to find!”

So on top of being a brilliant multi-faceted artist, Lou is also the good friend everyone dreams of. So who is "the sister of" and the "mother of" now, huh?

Cover of lay low

Cover of Lay Low - Released in the UK on 04/03/2016

COMMENTS:

18/03/2016 - ganais said :

I think the comments on here are so cute ;)

17/02/2016 - corinne.maillet said :

would be nice to win! thank you!

15/02/2016 - elodie.duval75 said :

J'ai croisé Lou à Londres l'année dernière, ça m'a fait tout drôle !

http://www.franceinlondon.com/
<a href="http://www.franceinlondon.com/">Très bon article by the way :)</a>

13/02/2016 - simon_dev2003 said :

I do love a bit of French music.

06/02/2016 - myriam said :

It will be so so nice to win . thank you so so much

LEAVE A COMMENT

Comments are moderated. They are displayed after an administrator validation.

:

You can reload the captcha by clicking on it