Célia Kameni

After lending her deep, textured voice to several projects and bands in the realms of jazz and pop, singer Célia Kameni steps out on her own. Following the twilight-like “Wrong Again”, written and composed by Yael Naim, she now releases the stunning and deeply personal folk ballad “I Do” — a tribute to Joni Mitchell, and the second single from her forthcoming debut EP. The record gracefully blends contemporary soul, melancholic folk, and ambient influences, co-produced by LaBlue (Enchantée Julia, Astronne) and Janoya (Bonnie Banane).

“Every summer, I go to this house in the forest. In the garden, we’ve set up an old-fashioned telephone, meant to call those we can no longer reach in real life. I speak to my late uncle; I tell him who I’ve become today. I tell him I did my best not to forget him.

‘I Do’ is about memory and the sense of mutual belonging — what we cling to, yet watch slowly dissolve before our eyes. It’s about loved ones we cannot hold onto forever, whose faces and bonds fade with the years.”

It’s a tribute to Joni Mitchell’s nostalgic folk — those who know her well will instantly recognize it. “If you hold sand too tightly in your hand, it will run through your fingers,” she wrote in a telegram to California, from Europe, to her lover Graham Nash, before their relationship came to an end.