Citron Citron are brother and sister duo Augustin and Zoé Sjollema and their new album Maréeternelle is gloriously timeless and if it wasn’t for the synths you could be forgiven for thinking it was an undiscovered classic from the golden age of 60s chanson. Two years in the making in their home studio, these eleven tracks feature Zoé on vocals, violin, synths and percussion and Augustin on vocals, guitar, bass and synths.
The sound is a wonderful confluence of modern and vintage; the latter coming from the fact that the songs feature a 1970s EMS synth (made in the distinctly un-French location of London’s Putney) originally owned by their avant garde artist grandfather and a harmonium inherited from their late grandmother. From the opening track ‘Nuage Défile’ the arrangements percolate and bubble with soft arpeggios and marshmallow drum machine and from my first listens I got the same excited tingle as I did from Air’s 1998 album Moon Safari.
The siblings are the progeny of professional musicians; a flautist mother and baritone singer father which would go some way to explain how they are able to make their music sound so effortless. Songs like ‘Dans ma bulle’, ‘Mer du Nord’ and ‘Ruines’ have a sublime buoyancy as they float into your ears, but you also get the cabaret sashay of ‘Est-ce que tu dors?’, the late-night fairground glow of ‘Chant de bataille’ we well as the out and out pop of ‘Rafales’. The mix of electronic and organic is enhanced by the sweep of reverbed violin, which adds even more class to the songs, and the use of guitar which is often doubled or harmonised with the melodies to great effect.
Maréeternelle is a compound word coined by the duo which translates as ‘eternal tide’ and references “the continuous cyclical flow of existence – day and night; life and death – and how they, you and I structure our lives around this.” Also, a citron is related to the lemon but prized for its zest and you get double that on an album that is both sophisticated and impeccably cool, and so effervescent you would think they put it through a Soda Stream during the mixing process.
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Review by Paul F Cook
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