By Mike Sain't Louis ·
Carla Bruni, Paris in sepia and a piano by the Seine
Paris, in sepia and with the ground wet. The Eiffel Tower peeks out behind the trees, and in the foreground a guy in a black coat and sunglasses looks down, like someone who doesn't want to be recognised or doesn't want to recognise something. Behind him, a long-haired woman plays a grand piano by the river, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
The title carries Carla Bruni's name, and with it comes a whole aesthetic: French chanson, the whisper, the elegance of never raising the volume. The cover plays at that, an old postcard, a little melancholy, with something of a black-and-white film someone left in the sun too long.
I imagine it for a grey afternoon, one of those when you feel like wandering aimlessly with your hands in your pockets. Or for when you miss a city you may never even have been to.
Press play and let it rain for a while.