Melissa Weikart - Contact (2026) [Hi-Res]

Franco-American pianist, singer and songwriter Melissa Weikart has released Contact, an album in which her long path from classical training to experimental practice reaches its greatest clarity and wholeness. She studied jazz and 1970s folk-pop, fell in love with improvisation at the New England Conservatory in Boston, and later moved to Strasbourg. Winner of the emerging artist award at Nancy Jazz Pulsations (2022) and the instrumentalist prize at the National Jazz Competition at La Défense (2023), she has released two solo EPs and an album, as well as an EP and the album Surprise and Secret as part of the electronic duo Beatrice Melissa. Her music has always carried the confessional candor of a singer-songwriter, set within dreamlike, shifting sonic tableaux.

Contact consists of twelve tracks, written and arranged entirely by Weikart, except for “New angles,” recorded with Manu Delta. The album’s central theme is the need for connection with oneself and with others: what brings us together, what drives us apart, and what life-saving revelations emerge along the way. It opens with “Crash,” a dreamy message in a bottle to connections new and old. On “Mesurer le vent,” layered textures evoke Debussy and Ravel and their Impressionism. The title track begins as a frank splice-reel of missed connections and dissolves into a euphoric haze, leading to “The Intersection,” which returns to the start of her career, when it was just the singer and her keys. “Appétit.e” is built around a sample of a neighbor’s drumming down the hall, while synths in the vein of Air create an unsteady atmosphere. The Carpenters-inspired “Expectations” explores recurring relationship patterns, long a hallmark of her songwriting.

The middle of the album is a psychedelic fall. “L’amour de construit” shows how her own emotions are captured and commodified by confining ideas about love, and the interlude “L’amour pt. 2” becomes a shout into the void and a last-ditch attempt at rescue. Salvation arrives with “Not Right”: a frenetic dialogue between voice and piano is interrupted by a rush of strings that lifts her back up. “New angles” offers a percussion-less groove built on experimental synths. “Catching up,” composed in a church, becomes an ecstatic confession and leads to the closer, “Bicycle.” In it, Weikart recalls her move from Boston to Strasbourg, when her only companion was an old bicycle that carried her to the shores of her own soul. Here, looking back is not anxious: it is grounding, a reminder of where she comes from that lets her keep moving forward.

Tracklist:
01-01 Melissa Weikart - Crash [2:46]
01-02 Melissa Weikart - Mesurer le vent [3:38]
01-03 Melissa Weikart - Contact [3:10]
01-04 Melissa Weikart - The Intersection [3:21]
01-05 Melissa Weikart - Appétit.e [2:14]
01-06 Melissa Weikart - Expectations [3:06]
01-07 Melissa Weikart - L'amour se construit [3:05]
01-08 Melissa Weikart - L'amour, pt. 2 [1:38]
01-09 Melissa Weikart - Not Right [3:28]
01-10 Melissa Weikart, Manu Delta - New Angles [3:33]
01-11 Melissa Weikart - Catching Up [2:17]
01-12 Melissa Weikart - Bicycle [3:46]