Daisy Mortem, French Countryside Extraterrestrials
“Raw, honest, iconic artists like her are rare, and we’ve always been interested in ‘extraterrestrial’ types of people,” Daisy Mortem told office. Both Fontaine and Daisy Mortem are otherworldly in that neither artist is held back by this realm; their art doesn’t follow any rules. The homage to French punk in this cover also illuminates the intersections between devastation, rebellion, absurdity, vulgarity, and poetry. The experimental track transcends subject and time.
We spoke with the duo about punk sentiments, post-apocalyptic Paris, and the wonders of growing old.
What inspired you to cover Brigitte Fontaine’s “Prohibition”?
In France, Brigitte Fontaine is part of a scene inspired by literature, poetry, punk and dadaist artists. She’s 81 years old, more punk than ever and still touring. Raw, honest, iconic artists like her are rare, and we’ve always been interested in “extraterrestrial” types of people. We also love to tackle unusual material, so it was a very obvious choice to focus on one of Brigitte’s songs.
How do you continue her punk sentiments with your own music?
We continue her punk sentiments by doing an auto tuned noise reggaeton cover of her song with all our heart and guts.
What did Brigitte Fontaine’s version of the song mean to you when you heard it?
Her song is about urban misery, and being old in a world that falls apart. It’s incredibly well written and audacious. For non-French speakers, here’s a translation of the chorus: "I’m an old woman and I fuck you in the ass / With my dragonfly style / I’m old and I’m going to die / A small forgotten detail." There is everything we like in a few words: tragedy, humor, vulgarity, poetry, all mixed. It’s funny, sad, and very political at the same time.
How has the meaning of the song changed to you after covering it?
It never changed. A good song is a song that can talk to a wide range of different people. This is why "Prohibition" is interesting: it’s way more than just old women who can identify to the lyrics. It’s about not fitting in anywhere and feeling left out by the world. We try to write our songs this way—there’s no user manual, no unique meaning. You have to search inside you if you want to find the meaning.
What inspired the music video and its taking place in post-apocalyptic Paris?
We rightly wanted to underline how the song is still relevant, universal and prophetic. Anyone today can relate to the way she describes her feelings, urban life and our society. Sick people are prohibited. They are thrown away in ditches, unless they bring some money/cash to the wealthiest. A main topic in the lyrics is ultra liberalism so, here’s Paris burning. This is an elderly woman singing what all the young generations are growing into. We all share this sad state of the world. Aesthetically, we were inspired by the retro futurist video game Duke Nukem 3D. We imagined aversion with Brigitte Fontaine as the protagonist, our post-apocalyptic heroine.
Who are some of your musical inspirations?
We’ve always been inspired by visceral and intense music. This could be Nine Inch Nails, JPEGMAFIA, Mike Patton, or SOPHIE.
What does the musical landscape of today look like to you?
It’s been super interesting lately to see how all the genres are blending together and being deconstructed. The only concern is that there is also less sincerity and more superficiality. It’s very seductive, this kind of “Fast Music,” but it makes it harder and harder to discover truly experimental and interesting projects.
What makes you angry these days?
It can sound weird to say that in these very dark times, with a lot of horrible things going on in a lot of countries, but we try to be less and less angry. Anger can destroy you without letting you do anything that matters.
What makes you laugh these days?
Cindy—Just being alive is kind of funny. So we always find some jokes and have fun with anything, anywhere. Being alive is so awesome that you don’t really need that many things to laugh. Besides this, we think humor is very important and we like to play with it at different levels in our songs, from ambiguity to irony, parody or absurd.
Vampiro—This brilliant mashup by Lobsta B of 'O Fortuna' from Carmina Burana and Crazy Frog. It’s the only thing left that gives us hope for humanity, bwing bwing.
What can fans look forward to seeing from you this year?
We will just try to venture into unknown and unexpected worlds and challenges to create the best music possible. We have an orchestral gothic reggaeton remix album of songs from our LP, Faits Divers, a pandemic opera original soundtrack for a short film, and probably more random generated stuff.
