Breton producer Émilie Quinquis has shared the latest taste of what to expect from her forthcoming album with a new track ‘Dec’h’. eor (which means “anchor” in Breton), the new QUINQUIS album, will be released on vinyl, CD and digitally on 9 May 2025 via Mute.
eor weaves together tales of mermaids, inspired by time spent sailing from her home island of Ushant to faraway places. ‘Dec’h’ (which means “yesterday” in Émilie’s native tongue) is full of bubbling arpeggios, as mermaid presences in the waves encourage the protagonist to lose their black cloud and dance forever, after they said they’d never dance again.
In the accompanying video, directed by Vanessa Le Reste, Émilie is encouraged by a troupe of drag queens – who sashay onto Ushant in a flurry of neon like modern-day sirens – to embrace the glamour of lipgloss, feathers and sequins, and join them.
Watch the video for ‘Dec’h’:
The director, Vanessa Le Rest, explains, “The video for Dec’h is a modern fable. Through the art of Drag, we see our protagonist’s visual and emotional journey from grey to colour, from isolation to sisterhood, celebrating resilience, and the transformative power of art. In the video, inspired by Jacques Demy’s Peau d’Âne, and the frozen poses of 70s photo stories, the Drag Queens arrive on the wild, timeless and isolated island of Ushant to bring an explosion of colour and life to our heroine, allowing her to become the strong, luminous woman we see at the finale.”
Émilie lives on Ushant Island, a landmass of six square miles off the coast of Brittany. Having learnt to sail solo three years ago – a necessary act, she felt, to get home to the island and leave again on her terms – she kept going. She crossed the Irish Sea, circled the Scottish islands and Faroes, experienced the vulnerability and power of living in the elements. She kept imagining what could be in the waves around her, what visceral figures could have been forgotten by folklore, and how – with her instruments in tow – she could help bring these mermaid presences to the surface, hold them up for air.
The result is an album in which music provides succour among the shudders and swells. It shows QUINQUIS as an exceptional producer, and an extraordinary singer, musician and songwriter, creating tracks which ripple and flow, that torrent and break, full of propulsive visions and startling stories of the sea.
eor came to life through her modular synthesisers – “I love how electronic music can connect, or create a dialogue between my body and somebody else’s body. You can really go to unknown territories with its sounds, and make people wish to listen again to them, to try to understand them, like when you’re learning a language.” – and was co-produced alongside Gareth Jones (Sunroof, Depeche Mode, Liars, Einstürzende Neubauten).
eor sees the producer bringing stories that could exist in the seas around Brittany to life. Thinking of herself at night on the sea, and the shapes she saw in the water, she kept coming back to imagining mermaids in folklore, and wanted to reshape that figure for the 21st century. “I wanted to think about the essence of a mermaid – the desire to encounter beauty that makes you want to lose yourself completely, to discover someone so enchanting that you would follow her into the sea, even if that would kill you.”
“We don’t hear many stories about mermaids falling in love with mermaids, or sailors falling in love with sailors”, she says. “I wanted to access these feelings, and these stories in a way that felt powerful, that felt right for these times.”
eor plunges into the watery cores of who we are and who we were, and carries us, powerfully, within its currents. It finds pulsing new ways to express the presences and emotions we encounter as we sail through our lives’ raging seas. QUINQUIS shows brilliantly how music can anchor us when we’re longing for the past, and propelling ourselves into unknown futures, her energy moving us, guiding us, all together.
‘Dec’h’ follows recent singles ‘Inkanuko’ (featuring labelmate Desire Marea, in what must surely be the first track to feature both Zulu and Breton languages), and ‘Morwreg’.
eor is out on vinyl, CD and digitally via Mute on 9 May 2025.
eor was produced by Émilie Quinquis & Gareth Jones. The album was mixed by Gareth Jones at Strongroom, London, recorded on Ushant Island by Émilie Quinquis, and mastered by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road.
eor – tracklisting (cat # STUMM515)
- Inkanuko (feat. Desire Marea)
- The tumbling point
- Blaz an holen (feat. Cerys Hafana)
- Distro
- Dec’h
- Morwreg
- Peñseidi
- Aet on
QUINQUIS LIVE
- 13 July – La Rochelle (FR), Les Francofolies
- 18 July – Carhaix (FR), Festival des Vieilles Charrues
- 9 Aug – Paimpol (FR), Festival du Chant de Marin
