If you've finally managed to get Parisian pop star-in-the-making Petite Meller's January single "Baby Love" out of your head, brace yourself, because she's about to get right inside your neural pathways again. Her latest tune "Barbaric" is once again a piano-driven, soaring-chorus smash that just won't quit—and it's made for your brain as much as your body. "I was reading [French philosopher] Delueze when writing this song," Petite told The FADER over email—FYI, she's also studying for a masters in philosophy at the Sorbonne. "His philosophy about becoming 'barbaric' fascinated me. 'Barbaric' is about the wish to be uncivilized, to un-suppress your wild desires; those feelings we suppress in order to fit reality's norms."
To really hammer that carefree point home, the "Barbaric" video (premiering above) shows baby-faced Petite frolic, prowl, and cavort her way around an absurdly glamorous care home, bringing everyone from children to the elderly into her quest for total fun-loving barbarism. "When we shoot a video I always come to the town where we shoot a week before, and wander around to find my cast—I believe in coincidental, authentic encounters. It's funny for me to think of how [the elderly folk in the video] woke up that morning and drank their coffee, without knowing they were going to dance with a Korean plastic surgery mask and sing we are barbaric."
"We shot the video in Miami. It was inspired by Truffaut's L'Enfant Sauvage, Cocoon, Village Of The Damned, and Woody Allen's Zelig. It's a voyage down the pastel, Art Deco facades of Miami, into an unconscious memory of growing up with old folks around. I wanted to show how even if they are put in comfort homes, old people still got the spark to get wild."
If you're in London, catch Petite Meller live on October 15 at Heaven.