Léonie Pernet

(FR)

Léonie Pernet is one of the most unique and restless artists on the contemporary French music scene. A classically trained pianist, self-taught percussionist, DJ, producer, vocalist and composer, Pernet moves freely between musical languages, breaking down the boundaries between classical music, experimental electronic music, alternative pop and Afro-Oriental sounds. Her work is a constant reinvention of identities – musical, cultural and personal – marked by an emotional and political intensity that defies superficial listening.

Her first album, Crave (2018), already revealed an artist in conflict and in pursuit. Between raw beats, whispered voices and moments of pure melancholy, the album seemed to ask itself (and us): how to live with what is missing? How to translate emptiness, anger, heritage and vulnerability into sound? With Le Cirque de Consolation (2021), Léonie Pernet responds, not with solutions, but with a new language: brighter, but no less intense. The album is a kind of healing ritual, a space where Maghreb percussion, children's songs, electronic harmonies, African choirs and whispered songs in French coexist.

Her music is both a mirror of her personal experience – queer, feminist, hybrid – and an aesthetic proposal for the future: a space where vulnerability is strength, where electronics are flesh, and where each sound carries a political gesture of listening, inclusion and reinvention.
In her live performances, Léonie transforms the stage into an emotional laboratory: between keyboards, drums, synthesizers and overlapping voices, she constructs almost shamanic experiences, challenging the passivity of the audience.

The body, presence and breathing are as fundamental as the arrangements.
Léonie Pernet is, above all, a composer of worlds. Not perfect or comforting worlds, but possible worlds – wounded, dancing, chaotic, and deeply human.