[From the archives] Herb Sundays 11: Clémence Polès
Enough to make you weep for Summer, an atlas of feel.
throwback: Herb Sundays 11: Clémence Polès (Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon). Art by Michael Cina.
I’m away this weekend for a wedding and wanted to share a playlist that hadn’t been posted to Substack yet, as Herb started on IG only. I was driving down the coast of California going through the archives and this one felt right.
I thought about my friend at a funeral today. I thought about how the last time I was here was with another person. I thought about how the friends I'm celebrating and reveling with are on their journeys, with their own songs.
My friend Latif (the last time we caught him in Herb was Herb 30 where we were lying on a bed in Rome listening to HTRK demos, each with an earbud in one ear) and I descended upon the area in our black rental car to the penultimate 3 songs on Psychic 9-5 Club, the 808 rattles misting off the Redwoods and surf.
My friend who brought his children told me that his youngest said: “The end of the world (he meant the coastline) was beautiful.” it is.
From the archives, 4.25.21
Herb Sundays playlist 11: Clémence Polès. The only prompt given to Herbalists when constructing their mixes is to construct “your perfect Sunday playlist for when no one is looking” and this week’s guest said she took that to heart. In the throes of her second vaccine [Ed note: throwback!], NYC’s @clemencepoles has whipped up a formidable 80s-steeped mix. Polès is a Creative Director, Photographer & Curator, whose international upbringing informs her perspective. Half French and half Iranian, and raised in a pre-skyscraper Dubai, she started
in 2015, a website/magazine that looks inside the lives and homes of diverse women around the world (and also spins up some great playlists).
It’s all inside. Talk Talk’s career-ending (and saving) last wave along with Peter Brown’s AOR disco, hiding next to David Sylvian's impossible “Ghosts” and bundled with Herbal staples like The Blue Nile. Enjoy.
