Coralie Clément

Sounding more like such classic '60s French pop vocalists as Jane Birkin and Francoise Hardy - distilled with the breathy bossa nova of Astrud Gilberto — than her contemporaries, Coralie Clément released her first album in 2002, Salle des Pas Perdus. The record is a collaborative effort between her and author/composer/performer - and Coralie's brother - Benjamin Biolay, who wrote and arranged all of the 12 songs. Born into a musical family in Villefranche-sur-Saone, France, Coralie could identify all of the instruments of the orchestra by the age of three, studied musical theory at five, and at six, she took up the violin. She never considered herself to be a singer, though. She spent much of her adolescent years listening to the records of Serge Gainsbourg, Birkin, Hardy, the Beatles, and, oddly, Vanessa Paradis. Calling herself a "groupie" of her brother's, she learned all of his compositions, and she began to reinterpret his songs, imbuing his poetic ballads with both a sensual melancholy and playfulness. It wasn't until a much later Paris visit with Biolay that he found this out, when she began to sing his songs back to him as he strummed. He recorded this informal session, and her first record ensued.