Lhe voice is moving in its bare purity, accompanied only by a few guitar notes. While the rain fell gently on the Maison de la radio – a cold rain, the kind that penetrates under wools and makes icy flesh shiver – studio 104 benefits that evening from a microclimate in Paris. A hot and brilliant sun melts the hearts of the 800 spectators of the Hyper Weekend Festival gathered around a pink and round star, guitar in hand, whispering words of love, reassuring words.
« Better, better, I feel better / Better when we’re together / My feelings are soft and tender… » Tears flow. “Soft & Tender” has the effect of a soft cotton ball gently landing on our eardrums. A cuddly song with the same fluffy look as the room it was written in. Ah, how good it is to leave your head on a pillow and be lulled by the crystalline voice of November Ultra… On TikTok, they are more than 500,000 (including Madonna) to find peace in the videos of the thirties cooing between his teeth with the happiness of healing melodies.
In working-class circles, an artist is not a career path.
November was introduced to music in Boulogne-Billancourt (Duchy of Booba) by Papi Ramón, her Spanish grandfather who fed her to musicals: The melody of happiness, West Side Story, The Demoiselles de Rochefort… “He was a nurse but I think he always dreamed of being a musician, like my mother, a caretaker who passed her baccalaureate at 34 years old. In working-class circles, an artist is not a career path,” she confides to the Point, between two rehearsals of his tour. As a child, however, she chirps from morning to night. As a teenager, she learned in an interview with Julian Casablancas (the singer of the Strokes) that the word “baby” can be articulated in 500 different ways. “Songs are 3D, we don’t write poems! she understands, playing with the way she poses her voice, without considering singing as a profession.
Mi-diva me-shy
Weaving her safety net (a master’s degree in audiovisual translation, specializing in subtitling, particularly for the deaf and hard of hearing), she posts covers on the Internet and gets spotted to become the stamp and pen of Agua Roja (“water rouge” in Spanish), a French indie pop band. “The chance of my life”, she comments simply. She then wrote songs for Jaden Smith (Will’s son), Terrenoire (male revelation at the Victoires de la Musique this year), Barbara Pravi (Eurovision finalist and female revelation)… Then vogue solo under the name of November Ultra , in reference to his date of birth, November 7, and Franck Ocean’s mixtape, Nostalgia Ultra.
She sings modern folk, going through R&B and pop, a little in Spanish but mostly in English, so her parents don’t understand her. Because if November Ultra is a charismatic diva who moves around in gigantic fabrics of tulle or pink fake fur, Mélanie (civil) is sickly shy: “When my mother asked me to take a baguette from the bakery, I cried for 30 minutes before I dared to buy it. I spent hours at Fnac browsing the shelves because I couldn’t ask for an album. The only time I got there was when they passed Jeff Buckley. I was so shocked, I realized I wouldn’t leave the store without knowing who was singing. Grace was in green price, it cost 7.99 euros, I will remember it all my life. I didn’t think I had so many tears in me listening to this record. »
We pause to observe it. His modesty does not show. She is talkative, playful. A bit like Peter Parker with Spiderman or Daft Punk with their helmets, November Ultra’s alter ego (also an excellent superhero name) allows him to reveal his potential.
It was to calm her anxiety that she wrote her first album in her bedroom, Bedroom Walls, comforting lullabies on piano and guitar. Sitting on her bed with her cat in her lap, a steaming tea on her nightstand (her friends call her Nova, like Grandma Nova, and also for the intensity of a supernova), her black eyes topped with a thick lines of eyeliner are lost in the sky that is alternately gray and sunny. She becomes aware of the passage of time and writes these words: « These walls have seen me cry, have seen me smile as well. »
On his walls are taped behind the vinyls and the books of the postcards sent by his friends, nourishing his texts with memories. “Good lyrics are lyrics that you forget,” she says, “because they’re so well integrated into the music that you only realize they’re relevant on the third listen. If we realize the text, these are bad words! However, we remember those of “Miel”: « Why, baby why do we lie to each other ? Do we lie to each other ? » Or was it something else?
Bedroom Walls (Virgin/Universal). In concert at the Trianon on May 11.