Valais artist Cyrielle Formaz, otherwise known as Meimuna, released her first LP album in late 2024. “c’est demain que je meurs” (“Tomorrow is the day I die”) features nostalgia, scars and rebirth. Meimuna sings of her native Valais, its conservative nature, but also its untamed beauty.
When on tour in France at the beginning of this year, she shared the stage with another musician, guitarist Claire Moreau, to present her first album: “c’est demain que je meurs”. This up close and personal approach suits singer and guitarist Cyrielle Formaz well, as she is used to her fans coming up to speak to her after her concerts. “These people have known me for years. They say my songs are about them, even though they are about me. It’s the whole world at a personal level,” she says over the phone during her tour, which also spanned Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She takes delight in the almost surprising fact that, in a world where “people are absorbed by screens”, there are still enough people who come to see someone performing live. “It’s almost a militant gesture,” she says with amusement, in her trademark perky, flute-like voice.
Which words define her approach to music the best? “Melancholy, nostalgia and hope,” Meimuna replies, keen to point out that she hopes her songs will comfort those who listen to them. “c’est demain que je meurs”, released in October 2024, is the artist’s first LP album, even though Meimuna has been performing for ten years now. The arrangements are crisp, always giving pride of place to the guitar, an instrument that Formaz plays with an assurance born of her classical training. The singer, aged 30, performs her songs solo, with just the six strings of her guitar for company, as she did in a video published on YouTube where she rattles off several numbers without batting an eyelid. She is a well-rounded artist and is involved in every creative aspect of her world: composition, recording, mixing and graphic design.
We nodded along and tapped our feet as we listened to “tomber du haut” (“Falling from a height”), a catchy track from her latest album. It is structured around a guitar picking arpeggio that is taken up by machines and looped, accompanied by drums and a bassline. The melody is irresistible. The chorus has all the makings of a hit. The lyrics are sensual and poetic. Formaz, an illustrator by training, designed the brilliantly inventive and simple music video for this song herself. It shows her singing and dancing against a background of off-white sketch paper, before transforming into an eye and then into a bird. “I did 3,000 drawings; it took me three months,” says the singer, born in the village of Orsières. “Je ne serai pas l’otage / De mes histoires / Il n’est jamais trop tard / Pour tomber de haut / Souffler sur ma peau / Repartir à zero”, (“I won’t be held hostage/By my past/It’s never too late/To fall from a height/Blow on my skin/Start again from scratch,”) she breathes in this featherweight song, where some lines resemble a haiku. “Est-ce que les parents tristes / Font des enfants tristes?” (“Do sad parents/Have sad children?”) the Valais native sings.
Cyrielle Formaz lives in Sion, having spent two years studying art in Brussels. She says she loves the “old country”, by which name Valais is also known, because it offers both living artists and mountains, where she enjoys hiking and climbing. The artist cites Ramuz and Corinna Bille, for the role nature plays in our lives. For music, she mentions Laurence Revey, a Valais musician who showed her that you can make music in Valais. Meimuna? The name comes from an Asian cicada that can spend up to 25 years buried in the ground as a larva before emerging and dying within a single day. One song in her first album stands out: “Ève V. (battre des records)” (“Ève V. (beat records)”) dedicated to the late French singer, dancer and actress Lolo Ferrari, whose voice is heard on the track. Ferrari, whose real name was Ève Vallois, rose to fame by allowing her chest and its enormous implants to become her brand. “Tu veux tromper la mort / Trouver du réconfort / Changer de nom, de corps / Battre des records”, (“You want to cheat death/Find solace/Change your name, change your body/Beat records,”) sings Meimuna, like a funeral dirge that soothes the deceased woman. Valais is also a region where words can be stifled by silence. “I grew up in Orsières and I suffered from the lack of scope to express myself. People didn’t put their emotions into words. That’s not just Valais, though; it’s rural areas in general,” the artist concludes.
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