GINA ÉTÉ Facing the Trouble with Faces

What is “Prosopagnosia?”, you may ask. Well, the word describes an inability to recognise people by their faces. It is also the title of GINA ÉTÉ’s long awaited second album, out now via Backseat.

Never one to shy away from complex ideas and concepts, ÉTÉ took her own struggle with facial recognition as a starting point for a series of ruminations about the implications of meeting even old friends anew – even if only for a second or two – at each encounter. “I asked myself”, she writes, “if it might be possible to regard this situation not as an affliction but as a gift – as we’re constantly getting to know the same person anew, viewing their face without prejudices about, for instance, racism or sexisms.”

By trade, ÉTÉ is a much-in-demand viola player and arranger (she has worked with Sophie Hunger, Faber, Patrick Watson amongst many others). Here, she also plays piano, synth, guitar and flute. Production is jointly credited to ÉTÉ, Noé Franklé and Klangstof’sWannes Salomé. The sumptuously multilayered results are what ÉTÉ calls “hybrid pop”. However complex her lyrics are, she never loses sight of melodic beauty.

GINA ÉTÉ
Backseat
Noé Franklé
Klangstof
Wannes Salomé.