Pomme

Since the release of her 2024 album Saisons, Pomme has felt an urge to explore new horizons. Beyond her first steps as an actress in La Vénus d’Argent (2023), she joined Stromae on what can only be described as a hit song — “Ma meilleure ennemie,” written for the animated series Arcane. Recently seen alongside filmmaker Cédric Klapisch, who invited her to participate in the 2025 César Awards ceremony, she also collaborated with choreographer Yoann Bourgeois on Le Petit Cirque, a hybrid piece that blends ballet, concert, and circus performance. Always between two shores — France and Canada, the countries she calls home — Pomme has pursued the artistic thread first woven during the recording of Saisons at the prestigious Villa Kujoyama. In Kyoto, during this residency, she immersed herself in contemporary art, design, and poetry, weaving these disciplines into her creative language. The timing was no accident: she had just parted ways with her long-time record label. Today, Pomme works entirely independently.

She is embracing a new sense of freedom — stepping away from the endless studio–single–album–tour cycle to rediscover the joy of performing, in whatever form it takes. Next year, she’ll take on one of the leading roles in Peau d’homme, Léa Domenach’s film adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel by Zanzim and Hubert, alongside Eddy de Pretto and Catherine Deneuve. Set in the Italian Renaissance, the story follows a young woman who takes on a man’s appearance to better understand the one she’s destined to marry.

With “des excuses” — three and a half minutes of reckoning — Pomme reaffirms her sharp sense of writing. While she primarily addresses a generation often reluctant to question itself or apologize for the hurt it causes, the song also speaks—depending on who listens—of breakups, whether romantic or friendly, and of those silences that no explanation can bridge. It leans toward a subtly organic folk sound, while the lyrics are stripped of metaphor, more direct than usual for Pomme. The arrangements—an area she is increasingly taking on herself—were crafted in collaboration with Aaron Dessner, member of The National and collaborator of Taylor Swift.

By giving the song its own space — not as a lead single or a mere teaser — and by making it both singular and instantly familiar, Pomme turns “des excuses” into a character in its own right within her body of work, walking in the footsteps of the great French songwriters of the past century. Having built her musical identity through contrast and resistance, and after nearly a decade without slowing down, she now finds a new kind of calm. Better still, a lightness — the freedom to sing when she feels like it, to dance, to act, on screen or on stage. She’ll soon appear at the Bouffes du Nord at the end of the year for Le Petit Cirque. “I will go on adventuring, changing, opening my mind and my eyes, refusing to be stamped and stereotyped,” wrote Virginia Woolf. “The thing is to free one’s self: to let it find its dimensions, not be impeded.” Today, Pomme seems to do just that — freeing herself, and allowing her art to grow into all its dimensions.