We caught up with Maurane in Paris on August 31st in a luxury hotel on the "grands boulevards". Sitting happy and relaxed on a leather sofa next to a (rather unseasonable) log fire, the Franco-Belgian star talked freely about her new album:

Maurane, you seem to have let your hair down a bit on your new album and given much freer rein to your emotions. Another thing that struck me is that you no longer use humour as a protective barrier. Would you agree?
Yes, absolutely. I think, in many ways, my new album is a very faithful reflection of me.

Is that why Toi du Monde strikes a more serious note than your previous work?
Well, people's personalities are never completely black or white. There's always been a melancholy side to me, in the same way as there's always been a funny, upbeat side. I'm not all of a piece! I think on the whole I'm quite a colourful character, quite optimistic and upbeat, but I have moments of being moody and sad too. That's hardly a very original revelation though! People are all multi-faceted - there are always several ways of looking at things. And that's basically what my new album's all about!

So would you say you revealed more sides to yourself on this new album than you have in the past?
I don't know really. I think I've revealed slightly different sides to myself on all my albums. But maybe you got that impression because the difference is much more marked on this one … I think that's because I was a lot more involved in the making of the album this time round. I was involved in every stage of the process from A to Z, basically because things didn't really go according to plan. I was meant to work with certain people and then, for one reason or another, things got called off and I was a bit stressed about the whole thing. So I ended up starting again from scratch and found myself working with a whole new bunch of people including Tomàs Gubitsch, Jean Dindinaud and Nicolas Repac (all songwriters). I spent a lot of time with them in the studio and the creative energy buzzing round the place gave me a lot of drive. It really kickstarted me into writing. All three of them generate this really crazy energy - they're not afraid to dabble in excess and extremes. So, rather than saying the album is a good reflection of me, I should say it's a good reflection of US!

Given that you were more involved in the songwriting and the production side of things this time round, did you find you got a lot more pleasure out of being in the studio?
That's funny - I thought you were going to say did I get a lot more cash in terms of copyright? … Only joking! Yes, to come back to your question, it's true, I think I did feel a lot better in the studio this time round. When we were in the first initial stages of research, playing around with the songs, I was really passionate and excited about the whole thing. This gave me a lot more confidence in my songwriting and I think it helped me bring up things in my songs that I'd maybe been wanting to talk about for a long time. I'd never really dared bring these things up before because for all these years I've been stuck with the image of being this happy, upbeat singer who's meant to make people feel good!
I don't want to completely deny that side of myself, but over the years you do start to want to throw off the two-dimensional image you've had imposed on you. I didn't want to end up trussed up like a supermarket chicken, so I started jettisoning a few things! I guess I began to feel a bit less scared about revealing my true self.
One of the other striking things about Toi du Monde is that you've opened yourself up to a vast range of musical influences this time round …
Well, that comes from a whole lot of different things. Jean Dindinaud - who I like to refer to as the album's "sound decorator" - carries round hundreds of CDs with him and creates his own unique mix from things which exist already. Even though he pulls together stuff from all over the place he stamps his own identity all over it. He's really passionate about sound mixes.
Then there's my input - I love travelling, both in the physical sense and the sense of an inner voyage. Whenever I travel, even if the trip's for professional reasons, I insist on spending at least a week in Japan, Mauritius, wherever I am, so I can visit the place properly. I love meeting people who have a totally different culture and totally different musical references from me. In the course of my travels my ear's become attuned to all kinds of different music. It all started with Brazilian music - and I must say, I'm still a huge fan! - but, thanks to my travels, I've also got into music from Africa, Madagascar, Ireland and Spain. I've been influenced by everything from Hector Zazou and Bartok to Joni Mitchell and Craig Armstrong. I'm a big fan of mixing and fusion. When it comes to music what I like are 'fruit salads' and fireworks!

Machines appear to have started creeping into your work lately …
It's true - and the strange thing is they end up feeling quite human! A few years back I was very reluctant to have anything to do with machine-generated music. But technology has evolved so quickly … Personally, I don't think machines will ever replace instruments played by real musicians, but I've certainly found it an enriching experience experimenting with them this time round. I find it a bit scary sometimes because you can't always tell the difference. Sometimes you hear a machine playing on a bit of music and you're convinced it's a real human being! I don't want to get sucked into that though. I love musicians! I love live music! And as far as I'm concerned nothing will ever replace the warmth of a real human being playing music!

When it comes to lyrics, there's a real mixture of styles on your new album with songs written by everyone from Francis Cabrel to Brigitte Fontaine. Would you have sung anything written by your friend Cabrel?
No, absolutely not! If I hadn't liked his lyrics, I'd never have sung them! In the past I've turned down songs by some very well-known people, in fact. What happened with Brigitte Fontaine was that one day Nicolas Repac stuck a sheet of song lyrics under my nose and asked me what I thought of them. I said I thought the song was absolutely wonderful - and it was only then that Nicolas told me Brigitte had written it with me in mind. I was amazed. I'd never imagined she could possibly be interested in what I was doing and, I must admit, it came as a very pleasant surprise. Brigitte even went on to write another song for me, a sort of ode to winter and the cold. But I couldn't actually include that - I could hardly end up with 25 songs on one album, after all. But when I start the next one, I'll definitely get in touch and ask her to write for me again.

Your new album also contains several references to the Internet …

I've only discovered the Internet recently but it's become a real passion. I always took it to be something that couldn't possibly interest me. Actually, if we'd had this conversation a year ago, I wouldn't even have mentioned it! But come November, it will be a year since I bought my first computer. When I first got my computer home I didn't even know how to turn it on or off. All that interested me to begin with was to use it as a typewriter, because I spend so much of my time writing. But then people started sending me e-mails and I got my own web site up and running and I thought the whole thing was great fun! I started answering my e-mails but it was weird, people didn't actually believe it was me writing back to them and they got very upset when I wrote "Best wishes, Maurane" at the bottom. Being ridiculously naive, I'd never thought people would react like that!
I find the Internet completely fascinating - I mean, there you are, sitting at home in front of your computer wearing any old thing and you click on the mouse and boom! you're suddenly in contact with the rest of the world. I'm like a kid when it comes to Internet - I love playing with it, I think it's a great game! And I've hooked up with so many of my old friends thanks to the Net. In fact, a strange thing happened to me the other day - I was on the way to pick my daughter up from school and I suddenly thought about a friend of mine who used to give me dance lessons. She just flashed into my mind and I started wondering what she was up to these days. When I got home that evening and checked my web site I found an e-mail from her! Thanks to the Net, I also hooked up with an old friend in Vancouver. We never actually get round to seeing each other but we e-mail each other a lot. There's a lot of rubbish on the Internet and some people use it for pretty awful things, but it's a great way to communicate. When it comes down to it, I'm interested in using the Net in a fairly 'pure' way!

Maurane's upcoming tour dates: September 29th - November 5th
For further information fans can also access Maurane's web site