We Speak Music
Nathan Zanagar Drops Stunning New EP ‘La Grande Salle’
Some artists chase trends. Others chase truth. On his new EP La Grande Salle, Nathan Zanagar does neither — he builds worlds. The five-track release is a daring statement of artistic independence, emotional clarity, and sheer pop ambition. If vulnerability had a beat, it would sound like this.
Each track feels like a different door in a sprawling sonic mansion. Open one, and you’re met with shimmering synths that pulse like city lights at 3 a.m. Open another, and there’s a raw voice, almost trembling, whispering confessions into the void. The project embraces extremes — soft and loud, light and dark, logic and longing — and stitches them into a cohesive whole.
Zanagar’s bilingual performance adds even more dimension. In English, he’s direct and sharp-edged; in French, his tone softens into something tender and poetic. It’s not just a flex — it’s a reflection of how identity itself can’t be pinned to one language or one sound. He’s telling multiple stories at once, layered like harmonies.
The EP’s emotional centerpiece is its willingness to sit in discomfort. One song aches for a friend. Another pulses with self-doubt hidden behind glittering production. Rather than mask the truth, Zanagar amplifies it — letting imperfections and contradictions shine like disco lights off mirrored walls. It’s healing disguised as high art.
Beyond the music, Zanagar’s visual storytelling is just as compelling. Every video is self-directed, making the project feel like a unified installation — a gallery of sound and movement. The fact that he plants trees when not creating only deepens the sense that this is an artist rooted in care, both for the world and for the self.
La Grande Salle isn’t easy background listening — and that’s the point. It’s immersive, charged, and often uncomfortably honest. But if you’re willing to enter its prism, you might just see yourself in a new light.
Commenting on the project, Nathan Zanagar shares, “These are the most unapologetic songs I’ve ever made. I wanted to push everything further: the emotions, the stories, the sound. This is me, entirely”.
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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