Aime Simone releases Oh Glory
Singer-songwriter, performer and producer Aime Simone's radiant Post-Pop has gained international acclaim following the release of debut album Say Yes, Say No. Revelation of the year, Aime Simone now presents his new album, Oh Glory.
The slight rasp of his simultaneously soft and dark voice evokes a battle between shadows and light. Built on emotion, Aime Simone’s Post-Pop is a clever marriage of pop songwriting and post-genre club music. His unique way of combining urban music –hip hop, club or trap– beats with moody melodies has captured the attention of Ukrainian DJ’s and the Berlin scene, and allowed him to climb the charts in France.
Aime Simone’s first album, Say Yes, Say No, was recorded in Berlin and released in July 2020. Through this record and its songs, the musician was able to garner an audience that extended far beyond the borders of Germany. In This Dark Time (more than 10M streams) has become a rallying song of hope in Ukraine. Hit single Shining Light broke into the radio charts in France (where it is a certified gold record), rose to the 4th position in the Top Shazam list and was selected to be featured in a major ad campaign.
Freshly signed to Because Music, the Paris-born singer-songwriter, performer and producer of Norwegian origins has spent most of his adult life abroad. His creative process is firmly rooted in those countless travels from one country to another. Each of them has set the pace for a quest, given its tone to a moment in time, signalled a new transition. This constant movement, both personal and geographical, played a pivotal role in Aime’s choice of English as the language in which he could most freely express himself as an artist since his earliest compositions.
Aime Simone’s early exposure to art led him to pick up a guitar at the age of 11 ans. He is equally attuned to the vibrations emanating from the strings on his guitar - a 70’s black and white Fender Stratocaster inherited from his father - as to those from his digital production process, of which he has an almost architectural command. His musical repertoire is extensive: interwoven elements of pop, trap, techno, reggaeton, trap, or soul will reveal themselves over the course of his songs as accelerated sensory experiences.
Each timbre, colour and sound is connected to experiences in the cities where he has lived. From Paris to Berlin, via Los Angeles and Vienna, Aime has sketched out a map of tenderness. The musical gesture, imprint and artistic truth laid bare, and without a safety net, in these topographical and allegorical representations are what gradually guided him in the creation of his new album, Oh Glory.
Oh Glory is an introspective album, an emotional photograph that captures the vivid moments of his journey. Aime’s personal story was enriched by decisive artistic encounters, like the one with Libertines singer Peter Doherty —with whom he shared both a deep friendship and various stages, from cafés to the iconic Zenith de Paris concert hall (as an opening act)— or with Sonja Fix, an American artist he met in Vienna in 2017, now his life companion and creative alter ego. His symbiotic relationship with the city of Berlin, an artistic haven known for its diversity, where he used to live (2017-2020) is also one of the pillars of Oh Glory, as are Aime Simone's pinpointed affinities with artists such as Rosalía, Billie Eilish and Swedish rapper Yung Lean, with whom he shares a knack for a creative form of intimacy, an on-stage energy and a determination to make mainstream music without betraying their underground and DIY origins.
Aime Simone decided to call his musical style ‘Post-Pop’. He was inspired by the term ‘post-genre’, which describes borrowing from such a rich palette of styles that the concept of a musical genre vanishes. Part of his influences come from alternative trap (itself derived from cloud rap, emo trap and witch house), reggaeton, techno bass and drops, and EDM (electronic dance music). The harmony and chorus-verse structure of his songs, on the other hand, stem from the classic pop tradition with soul and gospel undertones. Aime's songs are easily covered with just a guitar and a voice. The blending of these two forms of songwriting is what constitutes his musical DNA.
Aime Simone and Sonja Fix designed the artwork for Oh Glory alongside AI (Artificial Intelligence) artists. They fed the software their own images as well as all kinds of references that went into the making of the album: Parisian Belle Époque illustrations of gilded opulence on one side, and in contrast, a 2010s Tumblr-esque dystopian universe coupled with post-Soviet trashy imagery and the atmosphere of our current sex & drugs culture on the other.
Underneath Aime’s boyish fringe, one can catch glimpses of his stormy past, which weighs as heavy as the gold chains around his neck, and of his profound nature, as radiant as it is “reckless”. This telling expression, tattooed under his left eye by Sonja Fix when he lived in Vienna, is in no way an affectation. It is the permanent reminder of a promise Aime made to himself.
His style, image and self-confidence have flourished since the days when he was working in fashion in Los Angeles (2014-2015) while pursuing his musical endeavours. He changed his name to Aime Simone in 2019. More than an artist name, it encapsulates a transition and a real identity. It is also a tribute to his paternal grandparents –Aime and Simone– who were among the first to support his music.
Through his songs, the anything but naive Aime Simone addresses universal themes through optimistic catharsis. On the 11 tracks of Oh Glory, Aime never turns a blind eye to the dark periods of his life. Rather, like Caravaggio and his paintings, whose beauty inspired this record, Aime Simone makes use of these contrasts to conjure up a darkness pierced by light.
Tracklist Oh Glory:
- Never Far
- Baby Don’t Quit
- The Wine
- Answer The Night
- In Love
- Give Me Love or Give Me Nothing
- Not a Rockstar
- NOT WHAT YOU WANTED
- Life In This Pain
- Oh Yeah
- New World
