Belgian Pop Star Angèle Releases “Une Seule Vie”
Belgian pop superstar singer-songwriter Angèle has released her new single and music video “Une seule vie”, available now via Angèle VL Records / Sony Music. The track is taken from her forthcoming album INSTINCT, out October 16, available for preorder now.
“Une seule vie” is a pop anthem for this new chapter for Angèle and represents a genuine crossover moment. Built on the electronic foundations of INSTINCT, it introduces a brighter sound that would work equally on a dancefloor and on radio. Produced by Angèle and long-time collaborator Tristan Salvati, the track works as an urgent call. Written in the first person, it presents a stream of thought in which Angèle lays out her doubts and questions her relationship to the world, to truth and to illusion. Whereas previous single “Dis-Le” was about listening to one’s instinct and giving it voice, “Une seule vie” takes the next step: acting on it. The song never settles the question. It holds past, present and future together and stays in the hesitation, until what remains is simply the desire itself, to live.
The song arrives with a music video written and directed by Thomas Mailaender and produced by Partizan. A visual artist working between Marseille and Paris known for his immersive installations, the visual marks Mailaender’s first music video directing credit. Filmed in the south of France and shot entirely on 16mm, the video is a faintly surreal piece of work in which memories and mental images physically break into Angèle’s reality. Everything was made in front of the camera rather than generated afterwards, utilizing stop motion, superimpositions, mirrors and printed images. One moment could not be staged: the total solar eclipse of August 12 in Europe was captured live, on film, as it happened.
On the film, Thomas Mailaender explains: “We imagined the video as a succession of memories, visions and mental images that physically burst into Angèle’s reality. […] Analogue thus becomes the natural language of the video: a fragile, imperfect material to talk about memory, nostalgia and time slipping away from us.”
| Out October 16, INSTINCT is built around a return to instincts, to the part of yourself that exists before expectation, performance, and external noise. Across the album, Angèle explores the tension between control and release, image and reality, and the different versions of ourselves that emerge when we stop trying to fit into a fixed identity. |
| Electronic at its core, the album uses chrome as a recurring visual and conceptual language: reflective, artificial and cold on the surface, but ultimately treated as a space for transformation and freedom. The album preorder launched August 27, revealing the artwork, tracklist and full range of physical formats. |