Pomme

Claire Pommet (b. 1996) aka Pomme is a French singer-songwriter and producer. Following a first EP, En Cavale in 2016, a year later she released her critically acclaimed debut album, À Peu Près, which earned her a gold record. After a 300-date tour, she was awarded a platinum record for her second album, Les Failles. Pomme won the Victoires de la Musique Revelation of the Year Album award in 2020 and in 2021 the Best Female Artist award. In 2022 she released her third album, consolation, reissued in 2023 as Lot (2) consolation.

Pomme, who grew up watching the films of Hayao Miyazaki, has built her artistic persona around the profoundness and dream-like qualities that pervade the Japanese filmmaker’s work. In 2021 she recorded a cover of Itsumo Nando Demo and in 2023 invited folk singer Ichiko Aoba to open her concerts at the Olympia in Paris.

Pomme intends to use her time at Villa Kujoyama to compose original music, freely inspired by scenes in Miyazaki’s films, along similar lines to la rivière, a track from her consolation album which was in turn inspired by Spirited Away. She hopes to visit places, such as the hot springs at Dōgo Onsen and the fishing village of Tomonoura, which inspired Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli for their animations.

Her chosen themes are childhood – an essential element in her work and in her jardin and 1996 songs – as well as nature and ecosystems, in particular Japanese flowers which are a recurring feature of Miyazaki’s work. She will consider changes to landscapes in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s (the years of Miyazaki’s films) and in the present, addressing how humans and industry have altered and destroyed environments. She plans for each composition to be accompanied by gelatin silver photographs and films (a technique of the 1980s to 2000s). A handwritten notebook of thoughts, sketches and photos will keep track of her creative process.

©Lian Benoît