Pollyanna is a French indie-folk/americana project lead by Isabelle Casier. Her honest songwriting and her heart-warming voice is backed up by an electric or acoustic guitar. English-speaking author, songwriter and performer, she has issued three albums and performed in hundreds of venues across the western hemisphere.
She is currently preparing a reissue of her Man Time EP, originally released in 2022 on her own label, Acoustic Kitty. In this new version, due for release in May 2025, the original tracks are accompanied by previously unreleased, almost 100% solo acoustic versions. They were produced at the Cavern studio in Paris in a “live” and “vintage” spirit: one take for the guitar, one take for the vocals, two large ribbon microphones and a few slight additions (backing vocals, cello line).
After “Four Seasons”, released in December 2024, "Your Smile Is Cold" is the second single to be taken from Man Time Deluxe. The song is presented in two versions: the album one features a violin, Tom Waits-like DIY drums and a trombone. It mixes a latin rythm guitar and a slightly yiddish fiddle that reminds the city of NY. The solo version (guitar and vocals, with a hint of cello) is very close to the live version, with a subtle work on the guitar dynamics and the vocals. It is exactly how Pollyanna sounds like on stage in 2025.
“Your Smile Is Cold” is a folk song about friendship breakup : "I once had a friend who lived in France but got bored after a while: she managed to find a job and move to NY. After a year, I visited her and was eager to hear stories about her new life over there... but she had nothing to tell me. She was just as bored as ever. We had lunch in a huge, noisy restaurant, but there was this awkward silence between us: the song is about that silence. — Pollyanna
The solo version (guitar and vocals, with a hint of cello) is very close to the live version, with a subtle work on the guitar dynamics and the vocals. It is exactly how Pollyanna sounds like on stage in 2025. The whole idea of these solo versions was to let people listen at home to what they had heard live, stripped down, without the rich arrangements on the album.