Biography - Yael Naim
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BIOGRAPHY - YAEL NAIM Music is anything but a job to Yael Naim and David Donatien. It’s entwined in every aspectof life for these musical and romantic partners, who recorded their third album together intheir family home on the outskirts of Paris. “We never agree when we work, we always fight. It’s intense,” says Naim, 37. “Sharing a creation is one of the more difficult things you can do,” adds Donatien. “Notmany people share a book or a painting.” Nevertheless, it’s now 10 years since they begantheir successful partnership, recording the first, self-titled, Yael Naim album on rudimentaryequipment in her Bastille apartment, with her often singing in Hebrew, and watching itssingle, New Soul, become an unlikely worldwide hit following Apple advert ubiquity in 2008. At first Donatien was helping her to realise the potential of her own songs. An earlier albumrecorded for EMI at the start of the 2000s, before they met, had been a disaster for her andwas never released. “I was in my Alanis Morissette period. It was just bad, horrible,” she says.“I was working with people who were not good for me. Then I decided that instead ofmeeting music business people, I would try to meet musicians. I took a gig as a pianist andDavid was the percussionist. We immediately connected to each other. He was very calm,not pretentious. He was listening, observing, trying to see how he could help me.” “I was surprised that she could sing, compose, arrange and play,” says the drummer. “Shehad other people telling her they would take care of everything. I felt she had somethingstrong inside of her. It wasn’t about myself or my career, I only wanted to help her becausethe music was beautiful.” Step by step, it has become a 50/50 project, just like another major collaboration – theirtwo-year-old daughter. Strictly speaking, the name “Yael Naim” on the album cover is twopeople. Think of them like Bon Jovi, only their sophisticated chamber pop is a million milesaway from Living on a Prayer. This time, with Older, they literally met in the middle. Donatien’s home studio is in thebasement of their current house, while Naim’s is upstairs. These songs began their lives onthe Farfisa organ in the living room. The album’s centrepiece, Ima, is another comingtogether – it’s the first time one of their songs has included both lyrics in Hebrew, from Israel-raised Naim, and in Antillean Creole??, the family tongue of Donatien, whose father isfrom Martinique. They asked Leyla McCalla, formerly of Carolina Chocolate Drops, to sing the Creole lines.Other guests on the album include a children’s choir on Coward – a baroque, unorthodoxcomposition that has had a big impact in France. Plus, on Walk Walk, there’s Metersdrummer and funk pioneer Zigaboo Modeliste. “It was incredible to share our music with aguy who is part of history: the most sampled drummer,” says Donatien. The guests reflect the journey of the songs, which cover the excitement and fear of newparenthood on Make a Child and Coward among others, and go on to explore the death ofNaim’s grandmother on the devastating title track and the closing Meme Iren Song. McCallawas pregnant when she recorded her part, and the presence of the children and 66-year-oldModeliste almost shows the full span of human existence that Naim sings about. Voices are the centre of the album, however – Naim’s, of course, but also backing singers3somesisters, a band in their own right. Listen to them intertwining on the light-as-a- featheropening track, Walk Until, and swooping all over Make a Child. “There are voiceseverywhere,” says Naim. We were playing for fun. After a while it became a construction ofrhythm and vocals and magical instruments like dulcimer and celeste.” But if that makes it sound simple, listen to Coward, a classic-sounding chanson about feelingunready to have a baby. It has already moved on from its original form into two highbrownew versions – one recorded with US jazz pianist Bred Mehldau (“That was such anincredible day of music,” says Donatien) and the other with conductor Jules Buckley and theDutch orchestra Metropole Orkest. They will appear on the single release. Naim is at her most soulful on Dream in My Head, a swaying, grandiose song that could bea Bond theme if Bond was Parisien. Trapped is another one the piles the voices high, withNaim reaching dizzying heights on her lead vocal. She’s singing with more power andfeeling than ever before. “This album is very different from the last one. It has more emotion. What we lived wasstronger,” says Naim, talking about its literal life and death themes. “Suddenly life disappeared and life appeared. My grandmother was my first loss as an adult. I’m singingabout what kind of person you become once you are in front of big changes.” Music helps her to process everything in her life. “There’s a relief you can have throughwriting music. Putting everything you go through into it helps you to go on.” She has haddalliances with acting, and at the height of her fame in the US was asked to voice acharacter in The Simpsons – invariably a sign of A-list status. She played the neice of SachaBaron Cohen’s tourist guide when the yellow family made a trip to Israel in Season 21.Pretence isn’t her thing though. “I am the opposite of an actress: I have to be myself everysecond, or I suffer.” Born in Paris but brought up near Tel Aviv by her Tunisian parents from the age of four,these days Naim mostly sings in English because she listened to English-speaking musiciansgrowing up. She did 10 years of classical piano training, loved the Mozart film Amadeus andinitially wanted to write symphonies, but at 12 The Beatles began to turn her head. “I startedwriting pop songs. I couldn’t have my own orchestra at 16 but with pop music, I was free toexpress myself how I wanted.” Even her obligatory two years of military service in the Israeli army didn’t stop the music.She was made a singer in the Air Force big band at 18, touring the country performing tothe soldiers. “We did pop music, Sting, Eels, whatever I wanted. For the person I was at thetime, it was interesting, except for the fact that it’s the army and I hope that one day thissystem will be finished.” Meanwhile, Donatien had grown up in a musical family near Paris and become anaccomplished drummer. One uncle was a percussionist andanother was a producer ofCaribbean music. From the age of 16 he was touring with various bands. Naim moved to Paris after the army at 21 and signed her first record deal. “I wanted to be amegastar. I thought I was a genius and discovered I was far from that.” What she diddiscover, with Donatien’s help, was that a hit is much more likely to happen when you stopchasing it. That’s still their attitude after their experience with New Soul, which took them allover the world at the end of the last decade. “It was an incredible bonus, but it’s done now,”says Donatien. “We don’t try to make a hit again. It changed us in a good way. We don’t have to worry about hits – we did it already.” What they’ve done instead is make an ambitious, wide- ranging album that has somethingworthwhile to say about big subjects,whichever language they’re singing in. Their music-filledhome has been opened up to the world, and the world will love it. .