The title “Métamorphoses” couldn’t be more fitting: June Cocó, the remarkable singer, songwriter and piano player from the German city of Leipzig, has recorded her new album and describing it as a cover album or a re-work collection would be doing it a grave injustice. Instead, it is a collection of eight extraordinary song metamorphoses. Not in the Kafka-esque sense of waking up from troubled dreams and discovering that you have turned into an insect-like creature, no, to use a clumsy metaphor: These recordings are like colourful butterflies that have been transformed into equally colourful butterflies. If that makes sense.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start from the beginning. The album “Métamorphoses” started with a song of the same name, written by the French duo, Ravages, consisting of Simon Beaudoux and Martin Chourrout. “In the autumn of 2019, I performed at MaMA festival in Paris and that’s where I met Simon. We clicked instantly”, recalls June Cocó. “and when he told me about his band, Ravages, and his label, Finalistes, I listened to their music and was hooked, especially by the song “Métamorphoses”. I subsequently arranged a piano version, which I performed at one of my shows and had it filmed for a video session.”
June Cocó has turned the already released French duo’s new wave-y electronic pop song, “Métamorphoses“, into a beautifully haunting and ethereal piano ballad. When she sent it to Ravages, they absolutely loved it: “We were deeply moved by her arrangement”, the two of them praise the recording. “The song sounded completely different and new. But doesn’t it make absolute sense, that a song called “Métamorphoses” should be allowed to go through that kind of transformation?”
The duo returned the favour by wrapping June’s ballad, “Heavy Heart”, one of the most beautiful and understated tracks on her album, “Fantasies & Fine Lines”, in a dress of danceable melancholy and introducing it to the discotheque. Or, as they put it: “We tried to present her song as a journey through our own influences: French and Morr Music-type electronica of the 2000’s“. They even managed to sneak in a few words in French. Encouraged by the result, June Cocó and Ravages decided to release their respective songs as a split single. It will be June’s first ever release in France.
And said release is out today on all streaming and digital platforms – published by Schubert Music Publishing.
The album “Métamorphoses” will see its light of day on 19.02.2021 on Flashback Records via The Orchard.
