Cécile Seraud: Psykhé
Cécile Seraud

If melancholy permeates Cécile Seraud's third album, there's good reason. When the lifelong companion of a close friend of the pianist's died, his grief-stricken widow implored the Brittany-based composer to memorialize Gautier with music, the poignant Psykhé the result. Realizing that her relationship with the couple and their children was vast, Seraud decided to embark on a musical project that would go far beyond a single piece and instead become an album-length tribute.

Drawing on stories of their lives and travels together, she crafted a heartfelt memorial that honours the late husband and father in poetic manner. While Psykhé is primarily instrumental (approximately seventy percent), songs sung in French and English by Erelle Le Bars and Michel Le Faou elevate the project dramatically. An additional guest, trumpeter Youn Kamm, also appears, though on one track only. As haunting as the solo piano instrumentals are, Psykhé would be nowhere near as effective without the vocal pieces. In her early forties, Seraud is a conservatory graduate who brings classical guitar training to her piano-based productions. She draws on that background to create refined classical-tinged chamber settings that in places suggest the influence of lauded figures such as Arvo Pärt, Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, Sigur Rós, Yann Tiersen, and Chopin.

With Michel's wordless voice augmenting her sombre piano playing, the opener “Orphée” testifies to Seraud's finesse as a crafter of mood. That overture-styled statement segues without pause into "Two Hearts in New Zealand,” its tone of wistful solemnity wholly emblematic of the album concept. “Flying Soul” effectively evokes the liberation of the soul from the body at death, the mood less despairing and more celebratory in honouring the departed's memory. It's almost impossible not to think of someone like Arnalds when minimal piano patterns coalesce during “Back Home” into an intoxicating rhapsody of inordinate beauty. At album's end, “Wake Up” radiates with the hard-earned acceptance by survivors that, even after experiencing great personal loss, life goes on.

With Seraud providing magnificent support to the singers, “Hurt,” the first full-fledged vocal song, is one of the album's clear to-die-for moments. The contrast between Michel's deep baritone and Erelle's tremulous voice makes for an enrapturing and emotional outcome, and the character of the song suggests that some well-connected producer should find a way to get Morrissey and Billie Eilish into the studio to do their own version (given their vocals on, respectively, “Asleep" and “No Time To Die,” the idea's a no-brainer). Michel and Erelle duet again on the dignified “Le papillon de nuit,” with this time their breathy exchanges complemented by Kamm's resonant trumpet. One of the set's prettiest pieces is “I Love Your Smile,” whose affecting romantic declarations are delivered stirringly by the singers. To these ears, this touching, openhearted expression and “Hurt” are the album's standouts.

November 2025