"We didn't release an album, but we were still on tour": while passing through Hyères, before Monaco this fall, Jennifer Ayache talks to us about the return of Superbus

A wind of nostalgia gently blew through the night in Hyères on July 22. On tour in France for the release of a new album, OK KO (which will be released in Aix and Monaco this fall), which arrived in stores nine years after Sixtape , Jennifer Ayache, singer of Superbus, was delighted to be reunited with the audience, whom she had never really left in recent years. "We didn't release an album, but we were still on tour. Even if we don't feel like we're back on stage and going to concerts, we still see new people. There are parents who come with their children to introduce them to Superbus, it's expanding and it's very nice to be confronted with several generations."

“I dreamed of collaborating with Nicola Sirkis”

Released on July 4th, OK KO is "an album that we thought of a bit like the ones we made at the beginning," explains the singer. "It seems to please people who have known us for a long time!" And for good reason: two famous titles, composed some twenty years earlier, are again on this new album: Lola and Butterfly . Reinterpreting these titles today, "was complicated," explains the Cannes native, "because we didn't want to distort them too much. Personally, when I listen to songs, even live, I like it when they are not too transformed compared to the album version. Here, we had to stay similar to the original versions, but find a little something extra ."

The result: a polished mix, new sounds, and guests. For Lola , the collaboration with Nicola Sirkis, the leader of Indochine, and the singer Hoshi "came about quite naturally," says the singer. "I dreamed of collaborating with Nicola, and Hoshi is a very good friend. I know she listened to Lola a lot when she was a teenager. It seemed natural to ask her, as soon as we had this desire to remake this song."

“I need to write down what is happening, what I observe.”

The revival was announced a few months ago on social media through a fake wedding announcement between the two singers. "It came afterward," says Jennifer Ayache. "We were wondering what we could do to mark the occasion, and Hoshi said to me: come on, let's make a music video where we get married, and Nicola will play the priest! I thought it was a great idea."

Same idea for Butterfly , in duet, this time, with Rori, a young Belgian singer: "We wanted to work with friends and people we really like. With Rori, there is also a human aspect, we met her a year ago and we got on really well. I love her world, I think she has something and that we have a lot in common!"

Beyond these musical madeleines, the new album features twelve original tracks exploring the sublimation of chaos. Individual, collective, political, romantic, artistic… For Jennifer Ayache, the lyrics she writes are like a journal. "I need to write down what's happening, what I observe, emotions and thoughts. They become songs afterward, that's why it took us so long to make the album. But that's what's needed, because you have to take the time to experience things, whether they're complicated or simple."

"The world as it has become, with social media and our phones, has taken a huge turn."

The group, having gone through a period of latency and doubt, finally found the solution. And "this title OK KO is also to say that we found a solution to the chaos and that we made it viable," she says. Questioning the viability of things, and in particular of our contemporary societal models, is also the essence of titles like Aseptisé , which expresses a desire for change by questioning the standardization of meetings and certain aesthetic impoverishments. "These are realizations, when we have the impression that we feel certain things collectively, for example the fact that we meet in the same place, on applications. It's true that the world as it has become, with social networks and our phones, has taken a big turn, which gives rise to certain observations." Baby Boom rather echoes concerns related to the ongoing wars. "It's terrible, what we see on television. I make pop songs about it, I don't know if it helps... But at least we're grateful, because we're lucky to live here."

Learn more

- October 3 in Aix-en-Provence. 6 Mic. 35 euros.

- November 18 in Monaco. Espaca Léo-Ferré. Price not disclosed.