Photo: Chipi
On her single »Living in Germany«, Valerie Renay sings, »Living in Germany / I feel so free in Germany / Berlin is poor but so sexy / I love my job but work for free / I don't complain, it's Germany«. And there’s no way she’s serious. After all, the French actress and songwriter, who founded the project Noblesse Oblige together with Sebastian Lee Philipp in London in 2004, doesn’t waste time with the sunny side of life, either in her music or in her performances. Instead, as a rule she tends toward the decadent and gloomy. All that doesn’t necessarily mean that Renay is a committed pessimist—her debut album »Your Own Shadow« is rather a bilingual document of self-empowerment over one’s own demons, unexpected twists not excluded. In short: it is, like life in Germany, very complicated.
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