Oren Lavie - Bedroom Crimes (2017)

From the first bars of Bedroom Crimes one is caught up by the bittersweet melody of “Did You Really So No?” and the interweaving voices of Oren Lavie and Vanessa Paradis. The latter fell artistically in love with the former, which is not surprising when we know Lavie’s colorful background: author, songwriter, theater and video director. It was in 2009, following the success of the music video for "Her Morning Elegance", one of the very first videos realized in stop motion, that Lavie made a name for himself, received a Grammy nomination and over 30 million views on YouTube. The video focused on the passageway from the subconscious to the conscious, just before waking. “Dreams are interesting to me: ideas come in my sleep. And I like bedrooms… It's no coincidence that my new album is called Bedroom Crimes. "

Born in Tel Aviv, Oren Lavie began to write songs before even learning to play the piano: "My first motivation was not musical, but narrative. I later went to the piano to find the atmosphere and melody of my stories. I was influenced by classical music mainly. It was really much later that I thought I should sing my own songs, that my voice could be part of the story.”

Lavie's creativity and curiosity nourishes his ability to touch everything with equal talent, cultivating ways of reinventing himself. He lives today mainly in Tel Aviv but has spent many years traveling. At the age of 22 he left for London to study theater, wrote and directed several plays for which he also composed the music. Since then he has traveled through and lived in New York, Berlin and L.A. His first album, “The Opposite Side of the Sea”, appeared at the end of the 2000s, winning him the prestigious ASCAP award for a young lyricist. Lavie's orchestral trademarks were already present on the album: elegant piano, celestial strings, organic arrangements.

These qualities take on their full expression on Bedroom Crimes, entirely produced by Lavie at home, recorded on his own piano. “For me the album is like a series of paintings of people in their bedrooms: eleven songs are eleven scenes: isolated moments in which a crime of the heart is being committed. When I say ‘a crime’ I mean the feelings we often hide from the people close to us, or those we passively project upon them, like fear, jealousy, hate… and also love.”

About Vanessa Paradis he says, “I was always very moved by her and I was a fan of French culture in general… I loved the French New Wave cinema… Truffaut, Melville, and I grew up listening to Brel and Brassens. "Did You Really So No" was originally written as a duet for a man and a woman, telling one story from two different points of view. I asked my publisher if we could send it to Vanessa, who, luckily responded with enthusiasm. I met her in Paris and I played the piano and she sang and in two hours it was done!”

The collaboration continued a few months later when Lavie asked Paradis to act in the music video he was directing for the duet.

As if he was not busy enough, Lavie has also just published a children's book, “The Bear Who Wasn’t There”, which has so far been translated to twelve languages worldwide, and has two more books coming. Literature has always been a big part of his life: “As a kid I was always told that a book was a man’s best friend. Books have always traveled with me whenever I went. Prose and cinema have had more influence on my songs than anything else. I love the American writers: Hemingway, Miller, Bukowski and Raymond Carver, whose influence on Bedroom Crimes may be in the way that the most important things remain untold, they happen behind the actions.

In Bedroom Crimes the tempo rarely explodes, instead it rushes up and down ever so softly, like the heart, giving life to eleven timeless songs.

TRACKLIST

01. Did You Really Say No (feat. Vanessa Paradis)
02. Breathing Fine
03. Second Hand Lovers
04. Look at Her Go
05. Sonata Sentimental #1 / You've Changed
06. The Passion Song
07. Sonata Sentimetal #2 / Bedroom Crimes
08. Something Real / Did You Feel It Too?
09. Autopsy Report
10. Sonata Sentimental #3 / I Dream of the Water Woman
11. Note to Self
12. Her Morning Elegance