Petite Meller on her debut album Lil Empire - track by track

Petite Meller, one of the most interesting characters to emerge from the French pop scene in some time, has written us some notes on her debut album Lil Empire.

Described as "a journey through unconscious childhood memories of Dizzy Gillespie's sax, Paul Simon's Graceland album, and my mom singing me a French song by Charles Aznavour," the Parisian artist recorded her album in Brixton, Stockholm and LA.

Below are her own notes on each track that appears on Lil Empire:

The Flute

"It was 2am at night me and Joakim Åhlund were trying to solve a song we had been working on.

"We have a heart breaking piano but we don't have the song. Jocke is going mad about me because I am insisting to go through millions of sounds, I tell him it's all about the details but he's not used to working like this.

"His studio is covered with 70's esoteric vinyls, he's a collector. He plays on his turntables and go back to the endless sounds library. Then I shout we need a Mongolian flute. Suddenly he turns into a child and does his Swedish magic et voila comes 'The Flute'.

Hawaii

"Sometimes a day can be really beautiful and it can pass by, while no one, even you, noticed you were all alone. The idea of the song came from a short film I saw on TV when I was young. I told Craigie Dodds about it; it was about a girl who gets stuck in an elevator while her class mates are out having an amazing time in the sunshine.

"In the film, the sun only comes out for a few minutes over long periods of time, and she misses it. When she finally comes out of the elevator the rain has come again, her friends are handing her the flowers that they've picked, while she cries in the rain and washes her face. On the second day of the studio session, Craigie comes back and says ‘you wont believe it I told your story to my wife and she knows that movie, it was on the BBC once’.

Milk Bath

"Producer Craigie Dodds is one the best, funniest and smartest guys I have met in my life. We can talk philosophy for days without realising the world moves on outside.

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"In his Brixton garden studio called ‘The Dairy’, I asked for the African rhythms of 'Graceland' by Paul Simon. Craigie knew some of the musicians from Ladysmith Black Mambazo in his home town and made the connection. We sent all the stems to South Africa and they sang their heart out, replayed the parts from our guide track, and sent it back to us. What I love with Craigie that he traveled a lot and recorded real live African congas, marimba, which makes everything feel very real.

Baby Love

"I had come to Jocke Åhlund’s studio in Stockholm from New York. His brother Klas - who he plays with in a Swedish band called Teddybears - writes for Katy Perry and such but Jocke is special; he’s a collector of seventies vinyl and audio toys. I played him a piano line I had recorded on my phone and an African beat boxing rhythm I made with my mouth - that was the foundation of the song.

"We added bongos, and I also him to record deep sexy “ahhh” sound! I had come to the studio from New York, where my heart was smashed. On the second day of recording I felt our chorus was not what I was really feeling. Instead of crying, I went to the mic and shouted out, ‘you don't know what love means’! I wasn't sure what was the best chorus but Jocke looked at me, saying ‘is that a question?’.

"From there we added the French chanson melody ‘Ta da da da da da da’ - like my mom used to sing me as a child to calm me down. We added a crying Saxophone melody that I wrote by singing, which was performed on the track by Richie Garrison, a member of my touring band.

America

"This was produced with Fred Ball (Madonna, Rihanna) and Justin Parker (Lana Del Rey, Rihanna), in a lil studio in the garden of Fred’s West London home. The guys didn't expect to play African instrument that day - they had a big speculative look at me! I was sad that day, and I was in a mood. I felt that it would either be or an amazing song or nothing. I wanted a choir, Fred was recording his son singing gibberish, I made the guys play bongos, and high life guitar riffs.

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"We were like children. Fred also played a Beethoven line on the Omnichord - he has 2 of them. We needed a break so we went to a local bar and I defeated them in arrow shooting. Back in the studio, we were listening to what we did and there was a silence, be cause suddenly we all heard a word in the gibberish that made us all open our eyes in excitement, ‘AMERICA’. That’s what we heard, and that’s what the song is about. Pioneers, the curiosity to discover new continents and never lose hope.

Lil Love

"I had a broken foot that day and Nick Littlemore (Empire of The Sun) showed me a new technique of writing songs - it was to shout the pain away to the mic, I've never shouted so loud in my life then in this song. I’m a bit embarrassed when I hear it, to realise that it's me. It's about a forever connection between two people, through time space and infinity, but of a one sided love.

Power

"Was written with producer StarSmith in Old Street studio. I made him played the Sax. The song is about the will of spirit that keeps you go on even in the darkest days.

Backpack

"'Backpack' was one of the first songs i wrote for this album. It started on a taxi ride, I hummed to myself “I can finally think of time Physically, Think of love easily”.

"It was a moment of realisation of being happy and complete with my disadvantages, that became part of me as an artist. It was written on Ableton 9 push pads that made the perfect dwell in piano and 70's guitar, off course Paul Simon's story telling was part of the inspiration for this song. The saxophone lines I wrote for it are mostly from the Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gilespie records i used to listen to as a child. I also tend to record my Beatbox on a Zoom Handy digital recorder H4n. Producers want to kill me as I always asks to sing on the SM7 Michael Jackson's famous mic, while they used to the A Smooth Neumann. I like to sing personally eye to eye to someone in a room, and the Sm7 make that intimacy.

Barbaric

"‘Barbaric’ is a song written for my grandparents who raised me. It was written in a small studio in London with Luca Venezia, who looks very Barbaric with his vampire teeth and was later produced with the 70's disco funk sounds of Jocke Ahuland (Baby Love).

"It’s about the animalistic side of nature that exist in all of us, desires, and passion

Argentina

"Was written on the coldest Xmas day in Stockholm in Jocke Ahuland's studio. I sat near the white 70's Yamaha Electric Grand Piano that Jocke has in the centre of his studio.

"The sound I found, sent me into a dream I had that night before, about Argentina. The dream theme was coming from a renaissance painting I've seen in the British museum of pioneers discovering continents. In that dream I felt like I've been in Argentina already, on a school bus with some children, maybe a memory from my past, those children were all looking at my eyes through the bus's driver mirror.

"I feel like this song is my most philosophical one, as it deals with the point where dreams and reality are mixed, I see this moment as a creative one, of being able to exist in many realities. Coincidentally, since I wrote it I have many fans in Argentina, and soon will land on it's shore. Jocke surprised me as i was very moody in Stockholm and got back to London thinking we don't have a song, but when his Swedish Abba Magic touches the sublime.

Grace

"My friend Shamir wrote this song and gave it to me. He told me ‘I think you should sing it, and I want to give you it as a present’, it was the first time I felt naturally to a sing a song I didn't write. It’s the most romantic song, I wish someone will sing it back to me one day.

Geez

"This is a cinematic, epic ballad, recorded with Tim Larcombe in Brighton on a stormy English day. As a child I learned tap dancing and I imitated the sound of it by beat boxing with my mouth. It’s about a girl who makes a mob guy cry with her lil tap dancing.

Petite Meller's debut album Lil Empire is out now via Island Records.