Nicolas Michaux Announces Third Album “Vitalisme” Released October 18th 2024 via Capitane Records
Nicolas Michaux Announces Third Album “Vitalisme”
Released October 18th 2024 via Capitane Records
Watch The Video For Lead Single ‘Voir Le Jour’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Y4c-jkbsM
Select Live Dates On Sale Now
https://linktr.ee/nicolas_michaux
Belgian indie singer/songwriter Nicolas Michaux is pleased to announce that his third album, titled Vitalisme, will be released on 18th October 2024 via Capitane Records.
To celebrate the news, Michaux has revealed the official music video for lead single ‘Voir Le Jour’ which is out now on all good digital service providers.
Boasting over 100k monthly listeners and over 5 million streams on Spotify, Michaux has been heavily supported at radio by France Inter in his home country, with BBC 6music leading the charge on our shores.
He has previously toured alongside Adam Green, with a London album release show lined up for 28th November at the Shacklewell Arms.
Forthcoming album Vitalisme consists of twelve recordings made over the years on the Danish island of Samsø and at the Free House, the studio of Capitane Records in Brussels.
Lead single ‘Voir le Jour’ is a luminous track that talks about rebirth and nightclubs. With his characteristic sound and subtle self-mockery, the Belgian singer creates a universe that is both comforting and delirious, delivering a deceptively naive song in the style he is known for since his first album. Indeed, with Michaux, nothing is ever written or sung lightly. Behind its rock-steady appearance lies a true marvel of a song, a sort of philosophical tale questioning self-birth.
“This song started as a kind of joke by adapting a chord progression I discovered in an old Western Swing sheet music book,” says Michaux, “but quite quickly, I realised there was something to it. I played with this kind of dream that still haunts some of us: the myth of eternal love and 'happily ever after.' All these things you have to let go of in the context of a separation.”
Styling himself as an artisan, Michaux is also a hyperactive creator, producing music for other artists (Turner Cody, Irma Thomas, Ben Chace, Lisa-Li Lund), mixing (Regina Spektor, Under The Reefs Orchestra, Binki Shapiro), directing music videos, and even dabbling in photography in his spare time. Since 2020, he has been one of the driving forces behind Capitane Records, one of Europe’s most interesting emerging indie labels—a cooperative and self-managed enterprise by the artists themselves.
"This is my form of activism I guess," says Michaux. "I have decided for now to fight in my own field, music, by trying to create a sort of cultural ZAD (“zone to defend” in French), a self-defense unit allowing music to be produced and disseminated autonomously from 'market laws' and trends. We are part of a broader generational movement that only wants to work according to its ethics and its own quality standards. We see this in all areas of society; people no longer believe in capitalist rhetoric, they no longer want to produce junk for capital. I discovered the world of social economy and found it absolutely fascinating; it is one of the places where the world of tomorrow is being built daily. Little by little, we are trying to create bridges with other initiatives in the social economy."
Recorded partly on the island of Samsø and partly at the Free House, Capitane Records' studio in Brussels, Vitalisme, like Michaux’s previous albums, blends indie rock and French chanson, constantly rooted in a soundscape reminiscent of the warmth and freedom of 70s records. In an approach akin to Brazilian tropicalists, Michaux has always chosen the honesty of an artistic proposition that fuses his inherited culture and knowledge of French chanson with various "external" sources—early rock, Ghanaian highlife, and new wave, to name a few.
Produced by Michaux himself, the album features the Belgian singer playing most of the instruments, including guitars, wurlitzer, and bass, which form the backbone of the album. However, the album also showcases the talent of Michaux’s team: Ted Clark on bass on several tracks, Clément Nourry and Yannick Dupont on ‘Voir Le Jour’, Morgan Vigilante and Léo Léonard sharing the drummer's seat, and the contribution of the virtuoso Congolese musician Rodriguez Vangama, a long-time collaborator of Michaux. The album was mixed by Michaux and masterfully mastered by his usual partner Remy Lebbos at Rare Sound Studio.
Much like in his previous album Amour Colère, Michaux navigates between polarities in Vitalisme—dawn and dusk, birth and destruction, hope and cold lucidity, past and future. However, this time it is less about exploring the different poles of human experience and more about bringing them together at a precise point where life unfolds. Armed with impeccable writing in both French and English, Michaux traverses the familiar lands of inspired songwriters, addressing grand themes of timeless poetry as well as the empirical realities of the contemporary world: love, illness, war, wisdom, resurrection; but also climate change and class war.
The album's title, Vitalisme, is both solar and mysterious, chosen by Michaux in homage to French philosopher Gilles Deleuze who wrote in Pourparlers: "In the act of writing, there is an attempt to make life something more than personal, to free life from what imprisons it. [...] There is a deep connection between signs, the event, life, and vitalism. It is the power of non-organic life, the one that can exist in a line of drawing, writing, or music. It is the organisms that die, not life. There is no work that does not indicate an exit to life, that does not trace a path between the cobblestones. Everything I have written was vitalist, at least I hope so..."
In essence, Michaux offers a profession of faith here, a commitment that his work has to do with life. And evidently, this is a commitment held true as the album emanates a truth, a monastic-like simplicity, and a beauty that can almost be described as rural.
New album Vitalisme is released 18th October 2024 via Capitane Records
Live Dates:
16.10 - Brussels - Le Botanique (Release party)
18.10 - Paris - Zèbre de Belleville (Release party)
28.11 - London - Shacklewell Arms (Capitane Records showcase w/ Lisa Li Lund + Fervents)
Vitalisme album tracklist:
01 - Chaleur Humaine
02 - Peace of Mind #2
03 - Watching The Cars
04 - Alma
05 - She's An Easy Rider
06 - Réparations
07 - A Long Time
08 - Voir Le Jour
09 - A Tiger Has Escaped From The Zoo
10 - Le Léthé
11 - Vitalisme
12 - Au Revoir Ma Chérie
Nicolas Michaux online:
https://www.instagram.com/nicolas__michaux
https://www.facebook.com/capitanemichaux
https://www.tiktok.com/@nicolas___michaux
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSvyQomMzeOmiO6F5sltZ8Q
https://nicolasmichaux.bandcamp.com
https://bit.ly/michauxnewsletter
