Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2010

Photo by James Hadfield

Electronically enhanced French songstress Emilie Simon swung into Tokyo for a couple of showcase gigs earlier this month to promote the Japanese release of her latest album, The Big Machine. Performing solo at Tower Records in Shibuya, she certainly cut an impressive figure, decked out in a green sequin dress and beret, with one arm clad in a Steampunk accessory that turned out to conceal a custom-made vocal effects unit. With a laptop supplying the beats, she hurtled through selections from the new record, supplementing her keyboard with a Tenori-on and a dinky acoustic guitar. Nice touch, that.

The Big Machine was Simon’s highest charting album to date in France, reaching number eight, but she’s still got a way to go in Japan. “I don’t mind,” she tells Metropolis, slightly hoarse after an hour-long meet-and-greet with fans. “I don’t need to be a star to enjoy making music…It’s a pleasure to travel and play, even if it’s in front of 5,000 or 500 or 50 people.”

After making her name with a string of intricately produced avant pop, Simon took a different approach with The Big Machine, decamping to New York and honing the songs in a live setting. “I was writing the album, and at the same time performing too,” she says. “I was curious to see how I feel when I play it live with people, while I was finishing the songs, to make sure I was really in tune with it—and also to go the right direction for the production and everything. Before recording my band, I was kind of testing [the songs].”

Although she has mixed languages on her previous records, The Big Machine is notable for being sung almost entirely in English. This wasn’t, she says, a particularly conscious decision: “I grew up with English songwriters, and even if I’m French, and this is my culture and I love my language, I still have some English words coming to me when I’m writing melodies. I just want to let the melody decide if the song is going to be in French or in English.”

Oh, and don’t ask her to pick favorites. Asked if there are any songs on the album with which she’s particularly happy, she doesn’t even blink: “Oh, all of them. No, honestly… I love them, I spend a lot of time with them, and when they’re released I’m very proud of them.”