Odette, Ngaiire & More Take Us Through New So Frenchy So Chic EP

Odette - Laisse tomber les fille (Stop Messing Around With The Girls)

It's one of my favourite songs of all time. I love dancing to it. French vowels are tricky to get right so I had to push myself to be able to sound some of them. It took a few lessons.

Woodes - Fallait pas écraser la queue du chat (Shouldn’t Crush The Cat’s Tail)

I grew up in North Queensland and unfortunately never learned French, so this was a challenging project to do - but was one I really enjoyed! I found it interesting to see the subtle ways in which a word could dramatically change. It felt a lot like musical problem solving to get the right pronunciation, and then the next task was to make it feel like me and my own story or performance. I loved working with Nadeah, who taught me the lyrics to the song and helped me along the way.

I asked the staff at a local French cafe about the artist and they remembered her music, and helped me with my pronunciations! I enjoyed Clothilde's charming and dramatic performance. Particularly the ‘HEP!’ going into the instrumental section.

Ngaiire - L’idole des jeunes (The Idol Of The Youth)

I loved the experience of singing in French! I come from a multilingual background so it wasn't completely alien to me. I will say though that after singing this song over and over in the studio and trying to get all the pronunciations right I felt like my mouth was going to pack up and resign from my face! Trying to move your tongue in ways that aren't natural to your normal day to day shapes is a real workout. 

My latest album was also made between Paris and Sydney as my producer is based out of France, so France has a sneaky way of creeping into the things that I do quite often!

Julia Wallace - Mes amis mes copains (My Good Friends, My Dear Friends)

I loved working with Alice Ivy and going from never learning French language to being able to record this song in a few weeks! The melody of Mes amis mes copains instantly jumped out to me, and then the lyrics about a girl needing her friends back after a relationship was very relatable and just made it a perfect song to cover.

Elizabeth - Marie Douceur Marie Colère (Soft Marie, Angry Marie)

I loved the process of learning such a passionate song in French, the romance, the fury! It reminded me very much of being 21, heartbroken and running away to Paris to hide. I did all the things a heartbroken young girl should do like walk through cemeteries and start smoking cigarettes to be cool. If only I had known any words in French, now lucky me I know all of these ones.

You can stream the new So Frenchy So Chic EP here