Phosphorescent, real name Matthew Houck, dropped his most recent album, Muchacho, back in 2013, but now its follow-up is ready to go. C’est La Vie will be released this Friday, and ahead of that, he’s shared the album’s title track, “C’est La Vie No. 2.” The song is led by a light and jaunty piano riff, but the song isn’t as poppy as that suggests. Instead, it stays in a sort of meditative state, creating an ambient but forward-moving atmosphere for three-and-a-half minutes.
He previously said that while the song was the last one written for the record, it came to define it:
‘C’est La Vie No. 2’ was the last song I wrote — a month before the end, in May. I’d had that melody in my head for a while. Every day, I’d sit down at the piano or guitar and give it some time, but nothing was working. Then one night, it just came out wholesale. It was not by accident that the record came to be called C’est La Vie. The song served as the final keystone of what this record is, the lens through which you view the rest: It’s life. It’s weird. It’s so grand and huge, it can reduce you into an idiot. What else can you say?”
Listen to “C’est La Vie No. 2” above.
C’est La Vie is out 10/5 via Dead Oceans. Pre-order it here.
