SINGAPORE – Singapore Mandopop singer Tanya Chua has a special guest in her new single – France’s former first lady and singer-model Carla Bruni.
The song, Photographs, is sung in English and Mandarin and was released on Aug 6. Bruni, who is Italian-French, sings a few lines in Mandarin, with guidance from Chua.
In an online conference, Chua, 46, says: “We wanted to make sure that we’re doing it to a point where it’s believable, that it’s not going to come across like it’s just a gimmick. We really spent a lot of time, even though it was just four sentences.”
At the same online conference, Bruni, 53, says: “Tanya is a very good teacher, but still, it’s a language that is not so easy to learn, it’s very complicated.”
The two were connected by their record label Universal. It was Bruni who first mooted the idea of doing a duet with a female singer from Asia.
She says: “I listened to many different people and there’s fantastic people, you know, but my intimate connection was with Tanya.”
They connected online and hit it off immediately. “There was no distance and we talked as if we knew each other for a long time.”
Photographs is one of the songs in Chua’s upcoming 12th album, Depart, which will be released on Aug 13. Chua wrote all the songs while undergoing quarantine in Taipei.
After “idling and feeling at a loss” for six months after the coronavirus pandemic broke out, she decided to document what was happening to the world through music.
“I didn’t want to write another album about love songs or how to heal a broken heart,” she says of the stripped-down tunes, which feature mostly acoustic guitars.
Her duet with Bruni, in particular, was inspired by old photos. “I felt like I needed to hold on to tactile things, which I couldn’t anymore. I couldn’t hug somebody, I couldn’t help my family, I couldn’t see my friends.”
Chua adds: “With photographs, it’s always like there’s some spirit inside. Even though the colours would fade away, but when you look at these old photos, you kind of remind yourself who you are when you’re all by yourself.”