Paulette Verlee Announces New Album "Figure Humaine" and shares piano rework of Dua Lipa "Be The One"
Today neo classical pianist Paulette Verlée announces the release of a new album called “Figure Humaine”, which will be out on V2 Records on 2 October. With Figure Humaine, she presents her most personal album to date, a cycle of ten piano pieces inspired by Francis Poulenc’s cantata of the same name from 1943. Where Poulenc illuminated a single facet of the human figure, freedom, Paulette Verlée turns her gaze toward the whole: a person in search of beauty, consolation, rest, and hope. Alongside the album announcement she shares a new single “Be The One”, a piano rework of Dua Lipa’s pop hit.
Poulenc wrote his Figure Humaine for twelve voices, a cappella. Paulette Verlée answers with a single voice: the piano. Musically, she draws on several themes from Poulenc’s work, themes that resurface throughout the cycle, transformed and retranslated into her own pianistic language.
Like Poulenc’s choral work, her cycle contains eight pieces, framed by two reworks: neoclassical reimaginings of Billie Eilish’s When The Party’s Over and Dua Lipa’s Be The One. Two powerful female voices of our time, stripped of their contemporary sound and returned to their essence. What remains is timeless.
The eight pieces are not abstract compositions but musical poems. Tiens and Oh open the cycle as acts of wonder before the beautiful. À Peine and Personne confront the listener with transience and solitude. Then come the turning points: There There as consolation, and Qui Sait as cautious, courageous hope. The album closes with Voilà, acceptance, before arriving at its final, hopeful word: En avant.
Pou-who? Don’t worry, you don’t need to know Poulenc to enjoy this music. Figure Humaine is, above all, a new and contemporary work that's easy to dive into, no matter your background.
TRACKLIST
1. When The Party’s Over (Piano Rework)
2. Tiens
3. Oh
4. A Peine
5. Personne
6. There There
7. Qui Sait
8. Voilà
9. En Avant
10. Be The One (Piano Rework)
More about Paulette Verlée
Paulette Verlée is a Brussels-based composer and pianist who works at the intersection of neoclassical composition, electronic music and film music. Her work has a cinematic and timeless quality — soundtracks for imaginary films, built around the quiet power of the piano. Previously, Paulette released the albums choses vues à droite et à gauche (2022), Les Barricades Mystérieuses (2023) and En Attendant (2024). All titles hinting at references of Erik Satie, François Couperin and Samuel Beckett respectively. With airplay on Radio 1 and Klara, her beautiful music is also popular on streaming platforms, boasting over 2 million streams on Apple Music and Spotify. None other than Nils Frahm is a fan as well, having included Reprieve in his personal Spotify playlist.
