Blanche

“Meetings, writing sessions, songs that, like me, were fueled by travelling back and forth between London and Brussels.” This is how Blanche sums up the three years that passed between one evening in spring 2017 when she has revealed herself to all of Europe with City Lights and its first album Empire, which will be released this 24 April 2020.

Announced by the singles Soon and Empire, this first album of the Brussels singer was co-produced by Rich Cooper (Lucy Rose, Banks, Mystery Jets) and François Gustin (Girls In Hawaii). Ellie Delvaux signs or co-signs all lyrics. Important information in 2020: Empire is a "real" album. Hear an album that can be listened to from start to finish and where each song has its place. Empire is rich in its arrangements, nuanced in its rhythms and diversified in its themes. "I'm part of a generation that makes playlists”, says Ellie Delvaux, "but I still listen to entire albums. An album is not just about singles, it also helps to understand an artist's approach. It is the result of a long journey. It’s like a trip. This is how I designed Empire."

Listening to Empire, many qualifiers come to mind. But let's not get lost and get straight to the point. This is a modern pop album that has a young 20-year-old woman on the move with a voice out of the ordinary. "I realize that this voice is one of my main assets. Even if I don't always take care of it", she laughs. "Before a studio session, I never warm up. It's the melodies that guide my voice and take it elsewhere."

Crossed by piano, guitars, keyboards, drums, cello, synths and electro, Empire’s songs are imbued with deep melancholy but the listener will also detect light. "It is not a dark album, even if some themes are. For Stubborn, which is arguably the saddest song in the Empire, we didn't push it to the end. Certain words posed, certain sentences used, mean that the door is always left open and there is hope."

As is the case with Stubborn, the heady Summer Nights evokes in filigree doubts, questioning and exposure to notoriety, an even stranger concept when we experienced it at the end of the adolescence in the spotlight of the Eurovision Competition. With a text full of metaphors and a catchy refrain (if the expression was not overused, we would even say "radio friendly"), Fences invites us to reflect and act with our hearts. Each in their own way, Only You, Miss You, Pain and Till We Collide unravel the thin thread of sentimental relationships. Autobiographical, Blanche's songs? Cleverly, the young woman evades the question. "This is my album, these are my songs and my feelings. I have a lot of empathy. I know how to put myself in the place of others. Often when I write my songs, I blend into a particular mood and put myself in the shoes of someone else. Some songs are more personal, others are like modern tales."

Like the climates posed on the moving ballad We Had ("the first song I wrote for this album, three years ago"), Empire’s compositions combine organic and electro instruments by putting themselves entirely at the service in Blanche's voice. Nothing is overloaded here. A desire clearly assumed by Blanche. “Rich and François did a wonderful job. We took the songs very far, but leaving spaces. I like the idea of keeping a bit of mystery. The listener can thus make their own way through songs."

Empire is the first album of Blanche, real name Ellie Delvaux. Born in Brussels, Blanche was revealed in 2017 with her first single City Lights which represented Belgium at the Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev. Blanche has performed at several Belgian festivals (Nuits Botanique, Francofolies de Spa, BSF,...) and European (Eurosonic). She is the winner of a European Border Breakers Award (EBBA) which was awarded to her in 2018.