- The French artist twists propulsive club and abstracted trap into a striking outsider pop statement.
- COUCOU CHLOE has joked about how listeners try to pull the meaning from beneath the heavy layers of processing on her vocals. Citing her childhood in France listening to American hip-hop and R&B, she said, "I couldn't understand what was being said, but it was fine. I still felt everything. Now people who listen to my music are hearing it the same way I did as a child." Frequently warped and mangled beyond comprehension, her lyrics seem more concerned with conveying raw, hard-to-place emotions than showing a clear-cut path to their message. At times they feel cryptic, like they're straining to communicate but remain just barely indecipherable. But overall, they seem completely unbothered whether you get it at all.
Since emerging in the mid-2010s, COUCOU CHLOE's music has existed on the fringes of the mainstream, her videos too dark, her vocals too distorted, her beats just slightly too weird for her to break through. But, like her once-labelmates Sega Bodega, Shygirl and Oklou, it's COUCOU CHLOE's uncompromising approach to pop, club and trap and her willingness to exist in these liminal spaces that makes her rise to outsider pop stardom all the more captivating.
On her most recent EP, 2021's ONE, and especially on her new full-length FEVER DREAM, the French artist's sound returns with a larger scale, her beats more propulsive and her vocals delivered in a more taut, self-assured tone. Compared to the slinking, dissociated trap of early tracks like her breakthrough "Flip U" off of 2017's Erika Jane, tracks like FEVER DREAM's lead single "DRIFT" are direct and muscular. Floating on top of a heaving house bassline, her words are delivered with a scowl, sneer and wink all at once.
Chloe's ear for bouncy basslines and sound system rattling 808s gives other high-energy cuts like the "POKERFACE" and the UKG-leaning "SNAKES" undeniable dance floor appeal, even when surrounded by dissonant melodies and unsettling samples. This shift in tone also extends to "DRIFT"'s video: While earlier works found her in isolated rooms, bathed in white LEDs that painted her an alien green, "DRIFT" finds her stepping outside in broad daylight, eating ice cream surrounded by oversaturated pops of colour. Draped in far too many layers for the sunny weather, she appears hermit-like, willing to emerge from her cave but sceptical of her new surroundings.
While she's grown in her ability to write ear-catching hooks and melodies, Chloe's use of disorienting, uncanny samples and tongue-in-cheek sonic jokes is still very much at play—like on mid-way standout "WEDDING CAKE," which is constructed from a series of samples of dial tones and scratches and features a frantically barked guest verse from Japanese rapper NENE. Elsewhere, the production feels anxious and sinister, like on the Kai Whiston-produced "ICE CASTLES," where the lead synths give the sensation that they're being etched directly into your brain.
Chloe has a habit of reinventing her sound with each record cycle, but FEVER DREAM feels more like refinement. Here, she adds a fresh coat of paint to her past work—like on "SILVER A (T.I.T.N. PART2)," a track from 2019's Naughty Dog that's been re-tooled with lyrics originally released in a collaborative track with Varg2™—and sharpens ideas she explored on ONE, expanding her vision to include a larger cast of characters. Most of FEVER DREAM's guests hold a similar level of outsider notoriety in their own scenes, like Matt Ox, who, at eighteen years old, has had well over a half decade in the trap scene, or 645AR, who's known for a vocal style that sounds like a mosquito buzzing near your ear. Perhaps the most notable addition is Eartheater, who, alongside producer Tony Seltzer, returns for "KICK IT IN" after delivering a stunning rework of Chloe's "BLINK" last year. Built on fluttering rave synths and handmade percussion, the track is anchored by Eartheater's overwhelming vocal swells, which, compared to Chloe's understated raps, add a romantic counterpoint to the album's overall tone.
FEVER DREAM's more aggressive moments are hard and instantly-gratifying, painting Chloe as a tough-as-nails protagonist that couldn't care less about being understood. She wears her nihilistic nonchalance like a suit of armour, but in quieter moments like "KICK IT IN," she's started to reveal the vulnerability hidden between the cracks in her cold, metallic exterior. In the aforementioned interview, she says, "There was a period where singing and soft emotions weren't things I felt comfortable expressing. Now…I sing until I lose my breath."
On album closer "NEVER," she coos through a nearly completely dry vocal chain, "Close your eyes and you'll see me, give me your hand and you'll feel me, you're never alone." Compared to the tone of the album's opening tracks, it's strikingly tender, even sweet. Still, over a Woesum-produced beat that pulses, undulates and doubles back on itself, her message comes across as a warning as much as a love letter. She's not ready to show her full hand, at least not yet.
Tracklist01. DRIFT
02. POKERFACE
03. IDK
04. BEEF IT UP feat. 645AR
05. SNAKES
06. WEDDING CAKE feat. NENE
07. ICE CASTLES feat. Matt Ox
08. KICK IT IN feat. Eartheater & Tony Seltzer
09. SILVER A (T.I.T.N. PART 2)
10. NEVER feat. Woesum