Globetrotter born in Normandy, Tallisker is a free and cosmopolitan singer who writes her texts from travel memories. Her music recounts Scotland, the United States or even Iran, a favorite country, with which she maintains strong ties.
In a Parisian concert hall, a playful oriental flute tune resounds. The crowd follows their rhythm rolling their hands and shaking their shoulders. Many Iranians are among them. And for good reason: it is an evening in support of Iranian women, entitled “Paris Azadi” – freedom in Persian. But it is in French that the singer Tallisker begins the following verse: ” They tell me to do like the others, it’s my life, it’s not yours. It’s always the zephyr that wins, in my heart of plenty. »
These few rhymes sum up the thoughts of this little brunette with blue eyes and electric energy. Wandering, she tells in her songs bits of her travels. But where does it come from? ” She may be Iranian “, believe to guess spectators, imagining it singing its origins. It is not so.
From Rouen to the rest of the world
Éléonore, her real name, comes from Déville-les-Rouen, in Normandy. A few days after her concert, we find her in her current apartment, in Belleville. To get there, you have to go through a bright inner courtyard cradled by palm trees – like an oasis in the heart of Paris. The artist returns from California. Shortly before, she was in Japan. From each trip, she tries to draw a virtue, and inspiration for her songs.
Where does it get its cosmopolitan flair from? Perhaps already a little in the blood, with a family of Ashkenazi Jewish origin on his father’s side, of Greece and Italy on that of his mother.
In her hometown, she also spent a childhood in a multicultural environment, with many friends from the Maghreb. ” Over there, there was… not much! Just a road, a gymnasium from the 70s… But above all there was a municipal school, where I started learning the cello at the age of 8 “, she recalls. An instrument she chooses thinking of the famous composer Ennio Morricone, author of the soundtrack of her favorite film, Cinema Paradiso.
In high school, she took up the guitar. But at the time, she did not see herself as a singer. She imagines herself rather as a journalist. ” I had an explorer’s soul, I was curious about everything, I wanted to travel, meet people, and have schedules like no other. »
After two years of khâgne in Paris, she failed the competitions for journalism schools. At 19, she is disgusted with studies, and goes alone to Nepal to work in an orphanage. ” There, I really became aware of the Judeo-Christian bubble in which I lived. I learned about different ways of life, Buddhism and the idea of karma, it inspired me a lot. Back in France, she resumed her studies to become an English teacher, with an idea in the back of her mind, that of teaching in the United States. But she finds the aggregation horrible “: ” I realized that I was going to do a job in knowledge, when I need to be in creation. »
As she takes her musical momentum after this click, a tragedy occurs in her life: the sudden death of her little sister. He leaves her distraught for a long time: As soon as someone didn’t answer me, I felt like they were dead. »
Scotland, a new beginning
Tallisker, his artist name, was born in Scotland. He comes from Tallisker Bay, a place that seems to be the end of the world where she feels completely disconnected from reality.
Éléonore moves to Glasgow, where she rebuilds herself. In remembrance of her two years in the country, she will release the song “ Blind “. But his real first success is a remix. In the Scottish capital, she connects the DJ sets. While researching music, she came across the song ” Gol-e Yakh (ice flower) by 1970s Iranian star Kourosh Yaghmaei. She makes a remix of it that she posts on Soundcloud, and which goes viral in Tehran. Enthusiastic, she is more and more interested in Iranian culture. One thing leading to another, she imagined her first album “Counterpoints”, built in a love triangle between Paris, New York and Tehran, inspired by the strong differences between these three cities. The singer ends up taking her tickets for Iran, which becomes a crush. She will go twice.
“ Fields of roses as far as the eye can see »
” I have a memory: I am leaving Shiraz airport. I put my backpack on the ground, there are palm trees, it’s 35 degrees, I hear the hubbub of Persian words. Further on, there are fields of roses as far as the eye can see. The turnstiles that water them make little dust of water, the setting sun is reflected on them “, describes Éléonore. These roses, she tells them in Cocagne, track from his album. Another title, Azadi, talks more about the “underground” Tehran, and the private parties she attended, far from the rules imposed by the regime. In her album, she collaborates with Iranian artists met on the Couchsurfing application.
Today, the traveler still retains a strong link with this country that has marked her so much. She just went out Freea piece in French inspired by the title of the Iranian artist Faramarz Aslani Age ye rooz (If one day), and connects the concert dates.
At 35, the question of motherhood is very present in her head. The artist is in a relationship with a jazzman, who understands his schedule well. ” My mother always tells me:It’s the good one ! What are you waiting for ?” she laughs. Her family has often been stressed by her life journey. ” I remember worried emails from my father when I was 25, he told me that I had to find a job… Today, I think my relatives are reassured to see that what I do works. It’s a bit of a running gag, because they never know where I am. But they are very proud of me, and they tell me that. »