French band L’Impératrice releases new Music Video for “Love from the Other Side”
L’Impératrice has released a new single, “Love from the Other Side,” along with an accompanying music video. The Parisian band also just wrapped their international sold out “Double Trouble Tour,” and riveting performances at Outside Lands and Coachella, which saw them hailed as an “artist to watch” by the likes of Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times and Grammy.com. They were also praised for their live show from the likes of Billboard, Paper Magazine and more. .
“Love from the Other Side” is the first English-language single from their upcoming album, Pulsar, via Microqlima. “The first time I heard the instrumental, I thought, ‘That’s the vibe,’ even though it’s really different than what we do,” says the band’s founder Charles de Boisseguin of encountering a piece that began with Achille Trocellier and Tom Daveau, the most rock-oriented members of L’Impératrice. “There is a British side to it, like Gorillaz with a bit of MGMT.” Frontwoman Flore Benguigui and Nicky Green wrote the melody and lyrics together, building off the idea of “the good ghosts that are around you” and the sense of slight spookiness she heard in the bassline.
“Love from the Other Side” follows the album’s early singles “Danza Marilú (feat. Fabiana Martone),” an electrifying homage to Italo-disco and is an anthem for women of all ages for freely moving on the dancefloor; and “Me Da Igual,” three words in Spanish that roll off the tongue, a perfect title for a track of heightened sensuality. These early singles from Pulsar give listeners a look at what to expect throughout the the focused but far-reaching new record, influenced by the band’s travels around the globe in support of 2021 album Tako Tsubo, including shows across the U.S., Mexico and Europe.
Pulsar sees L’Impératrice move freely among the sounds they love, bridging hip-hop, kosmische, and modern pop with their most unabashed embraces of French Touch and international house ever. It is their first album to feature guest vocalists including folk / pop singer Maggie Rogers and rapper / producer Erick the Architect, among others.
The new album is also a record where L’Impératrice made every decision, a set of songs that truly captured the band’s spirit both onstage and off. The self-produced album radiates the energy and wisdom of a band that has helmed so many dance parties around the world on the way to finding itself and its sound. Throughout, vocalist Benguigui boldly sings of self-empowerment, or of shirking beauty standards, ageism, and drab normalcy. These are apt messages for these incandescent anthems of experience, of being yourself instead of anyone else’s version of it.
While writing the album, L’Impératice also tried a novel approach – splitting into two teams of ever-interchanging members to explore new ideas, led by de Boisseguin. It was a way of incorporating every voice into writing like never before, pulling from idiosyncratic upbringings and enthusiasms. They then passed the tracks to Benguigui, a longtime jazz singer who would sometimes write two-dozen vocal melodies for a song just to see which one fit best. It was an arduous and exciting process and saw the band go from writing through to recording the album in about nine months. This was the sort of self-determination they’d wanted and now found.
