The French sextet L’Impératrice has teamed up with California’s Cuco to bring their nu-disco and psychedelic styles together to a perfect match with “Heartquake”. Having met backstage at Coachella in 2022, they created the thrilling summer song which is bound to become a live highlight at the summer festivals. After becoming a “festival favorite” with rave live reviews for their Coachella and Austin City Limits performances, L’Impératrice has been invited to play Lollapalooza in Chicago and Outside Lands and San Francisco this summer.
L’Impératrice elaborates on “Heartquake”: "It's the story of someone completely disconnected from their emotions who is on their usual peaceful bus ride one morning. And then, someone sits across from them, and suddenly, their brain freezes, and they fall to their knees, struck by a thunderbolt, a kind of Tako tsubo. It's a sensation that shakes them to the core, and they're not sure if they can survive it, but they desire it." Cuco adds: “It’s a pleasure and honor to be working with my friends in L’Impératrice." You can see their YouTube live interview together here.
To further introduce the Parisian band, one can start by explaining that “Impératrice” is French for “Empress”. The frontwoman Flore Benguigui (vocals, synths) and Charles de Boisseguin (the group's founder on keyboards), Hagni Gwon (keyboards), David Gaugué (bass guitar), Achille Trocellier (electric guitar), Tom Daveau (drums) form an electrifying live band, draw from a range of genres, from 70s space disco to downtempo 90s synth pop, taking in French film composers like François de Roubaix and Michel Legrand along the way. “Albums that sold 500 copies in the 1970s are the records that interest us most,” the band explains.
L'Impératrice’s debut album Matahari arrived worldwide in 2019 with all the pomp and circumstance of a coronation. Matahari is a glittering, cinematic summation of six years of hard work that draws on some of the finest found sounds and forgotten sonic fandangos hiding in crates across the land, all given L'Impératrice’s own inimitable 21st century twist. Their follow up album Tako Tsubo (2021) was critically acclaimed and earned them the chance to play Coachella 2022, which became their breakthrough live set. Tako Tsubo is the official name for broken-heart syndrome, (蛸 壺, from Japanese "octopus trap"), which manifests itself by a deformation of the heart due to an intense emotion - a negative or positive one.