Watch: Petite Meller “Backpack”

20 Sep 2013 — Parker Bruce

The video for NYC via Paris singer Petite Meller's new song "Backpack" is like an American Apparel ad directed by Jean-Luc Godard (see Pierrot Le Fou). On her Facebook she says: "Welcome to my lil ☠ Empire ☠! J♥'aime la philosophy, Lingerie et Le nuvo Jazzy pop." And indeed, "Backpack" has all that and more. Fittingly, one of the video's directors (the other is A.T.Mann) is an American Apparel photographer, Napoleon Habeica. In the beginning of the video, she reads aloud from a book, cigarette in her mouth, straw hat on head, sitting on a boat: "I dance the jazz with physical passion, real and surreal, terrifying and funny, nocturnal and diunrnal, usual and unusual, the tacky terror, the war and the madness, all those things, in my backpack." The piece has a slinky, a knife, dancing outside of a castle and in a chapel, and the awkwardness of a Wes Anderson movie. The song is very much in the Lorde vein, but this is probably my favorite description of her: "...she is often compared to a post-modern Mia Farrow with a Brigitte Bardot allure." Petite also fits in with Karley Sciortino, Myla Dalbesio, and Petra Collins (who is doing a t-shirt line for American Apparel – so you know). Basically, it all comes back to AA. Let's see what Petite will pull out of her 2013 equivalent of the Mary Poppins bag next since: "P E T I T E debut video 'NYC TIME'...was inspired by David Hamilton’s esthetics and represents the Voyage of rhythm to NYC."

You can snag "Backpack" on Petite's bandcamp page.