Artist: Tanbark
Hometown: Brooklyn, New York
Song: “Châtelet”
Album: Tanbark
Release Date: Fall 2018
In Their Words: “Immediately after finishing a biography about Voltaire’s tumultuous relationship with his lover, Madame du Châtelet, I felt compelled to write them a love song–they were so perfectly suited for each other and also so terrible for each other. But beyond that, I wanted to focus on Châtelet as the subject. She is often treated as just a footnote, but she was a respected philosopher in her own right. She was a translator and a scientist, obsessively gambled, was fiercely maternal, and had lovers when she shouldn’t have.
This is our homage to her, both the real person and our partly-imagined version. As I developed the song, it departed from the strictly biographical. She was becoming a relatable, complicated, modern woman. ‘The way you hold your pen/ you make the men go crazy.’ To us, at least, she still does.” — Tanbark
Photo credit: Zoe Prinds-Flash
