Here come the animals

We have a new album out! It’s called ‘Des Animaux Pires Que Moi’, featuring music by Louis Fontaine, and vocals by Yzoula, formerly in the French band La Femme. (An English translation could be ‘Creatures Crueler Than Me.’) 

After the positive experience we had working on our song ‘Tormento’, composer and multi-instrumentalist Louis Fontaine asked if I would like to brainstorm and write the lyrics for his next album with the singer Yzoula. We met up in his studio in Paris. Pointing to an old film poster above one of his 1970s synthesizers, he said he wanted to make an album about a vampire or a young witch. He played some of the tracks he had composed and I took some notes in my sketchbook. 

Excited about the project, I walked to my local library and checked out a stack of books about witchcraft and the history of the occult in Paris. Fontaine sent me the music, along with more specifics: one song should have the mood of chanson française, another should be a speech, another a kind of spell, another a spoken story, and the last song should be a bit melancholy.  I walked the rainy streets of Paris, crossing the Seine, singing poems to myself, and remembering the times I could have used some magic powers. 

From there, I created the character of the album's protagonist: a kind of sorceress with my personality and experiences combined with elements of the singer. Then I wrote the songs in French, layering my stories and moments with my research, along with inspiration of witchy movies and 1970s pulp books, (which I collect) plus a sprinkle of imagination… and a dash of dark humor. I also came up with the titles of the instrumental songs, except for the second song on the record. Fontaine liked the lyrics, recorded Yzoula’s dreamy vocals, brought in a harpist and a violinist, and spent many hours mastering and perfecting the songs. 

‘Des Animaux…’ tells a story about supernatural powers, taking risks, playing with seduction and revenge, and prowling around Paris. Broc Recordz is releasing ‘Des Animaux Pires Que Moi’ on April 18th, 2025 on vinyl. You can listen to the first single here or watch the video here. If you don’t have a record player, you can stream the album to get in the midnight mood.

My First Disco Song

I've loved disco music since I was a teenager, growing up in the right city but in the wrong decade. It was easy to find cheap disco records in New York City, if you knew how to hunt. I started collecting records when I was about 14, and began taking it more seriously four years later. 

Fast forward to a recent unexpected encounter in Paris: I met the composer Louis Fontaine in a cafe in Le Marais. Sharing a fondness for 1970s music, films, and hairstyles, we struck up a kind of friendship. He asked if I wanted to write lyrics for him. We started with a soft disco track. He had heard singer/ music supervisor Alix Brown performing in bands (including La Femme and Daisy Glaze), and wanted her to sing the song. I wrote a late night-tale about a strange love triangle I nearly interfaced with while living in Madrid. We recorded the song and heard from labels a few months later. On February 14th, 2025 the cult Italian record label Four Flies released our song 'Tormento' on vinyl. You can listen to it here.

'Tormento' appeared in the press and soon featured on radio shows including KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic. Shindig, the English magazine wrote "It's a beguiling song, the music combining a lilting keyboard arpeggio, sinewy bass and insistent rhythm with vocals that are at once intimate yet ethereal...Fontaine found his wordsmith when he met author and artist Margo Fortuny in a Paris bar." (Clive Webb.) A fun fact: Chuck D from Public Enemy loves Shindig and has been collecting issues for years! 

Italy's IndieVision wrote "This is a piece that owes a lot to the music of Serge Gainsbourg and the soundtracks of François de Roubaix, that is to say to those electronic sounds, precursors of the French touch à la Cerrone and Daft Punk, which pairs perfectly with sensually captivating and mischievous lyrics... From the union of these three artistic minds, all linked to the Italian cinematic aesthetics of the 70s, 'Tormento' was born, a song where Brown's dazzling and sensual voice marries perfectly with Fontaine's sexy late-'70s sound, dominated by analog synthesizers, thus giving life to Fortuny's story, a nocturnal tale of seduction, transgression and sensual tension where one does not listen to one's own rationality, one's own fears, but one lets oneself be involved and dragged into the inebriating vortex of the forbidden." (Edoardo Previti) 

Mexico's DNA magazine wrote "Vintage synthesizers, powerful bass, and rhythmic percussion dominate the instrumental of the piece, while Alix's intoned lyrics are inhabited by Odyssean and fantastical feelings, contemplated by desire. In a kind of erotic filmscape, the texture of the voice envelops the love of Alix, Louis, and Margo Fortuny, the lyricist and writer of the piece, for the seventies and the musical aesthetic that leaves its mark." (Sofo Tequiero) 

Flaunt magazine wrote "Tormento sweeps you away into the gleamy, glowy summer nights of the late sixties and seventies from the very first chord... Brown contributed vocals from L.A. to music composed by instrumentalist and soundtrack maestro Louis Fontaine with lyrics by Margo Fortuny. The shimmering recording captures Brown's Jane Birkin breathiness as she mouths a teasing mix of French and English couplets that dissect a forbidden desire...alongside references to Emile Zola and 'Twister'." (Hannah Bhuiya.) 

The Pleasures Come to London

Koenig Books, Frieze Art Fair 2021

After years away from my second home (in my heart, not in bricks) I finally flew to London. Aside from museum-hopping and eating Indian food, I visited the coolest bookshops in the city, discovered new authors, distributed my book, met up with friends, and had some wild times in East London. The highlight of the trip was seeing my art book, ‘The Pleasures of Hackney Road’, at Koenig Books in Frieze Art Fair. 

Here’s where you can find my art book in London:

The Broadway Bookshop. Burley Fisher Books. Pages of Hackney. Gosh!. Housmans Books. Koenig Books at Frieze.

It’s also available in 12 other bookstores and art museums. Write me on Instagram @thefortunyverse if you would like to find a copy at your nearest bookseller.

The second draft...

My book at Gosh! in Soho

The Pleasures of Hackney Road

This year I wrote and illustrated my first artist book! The Pleasures of Hackney Road: Five Tales of Wildness features drawings and stories about my adventures in London. You can find it at two major contemporary art institutions (The CCCB and La Casa Encendida) and at numerous bookstores. There's also a Spanish edition, Los Placeres de Hackney Road, which is now in its second printing. 

You can write me on Instagram @margofortuny if you would like to order a copy internationally or stock it. 

It's the first in a series of books about different cities I've lived in. What cities do you dream of moving to, if you just move spontaneously?

Holding my book in Madrid

The inside of 'The Pleasures of Hackney Road' by Margo Fortuny

A drawing from 'The Pleasures of Hackney Road' by Margo Fortuny

At El Imparcial in Madrid

At the CCCB bookshop in Barcelona

 THE PAST IN THE GRASS

He disentangled his body from hers. Above the low bed, the rotating blades of the ceiling fan dragged the air in circles. He held her hand to stop her nuzzling, to keep her connected but at an arm’s length. The empty feeling seeped in. Her breathing slowed and he slipped out.

The morning bleated around him in a song of herds and dust and chains of jasmine.  He walked to his bike and took off for Bagan. White cows ambled by mares on the side of the road. Thin women walked in the opposite direction, balancing massive roped-up branches on their heads. The smell of earth inhabited his nostrils, the sun eased over his face, the wind stroked his hair and he forgot about her. Freed from thought he relaxed into sensation. The monsoon had intensified the landscape: trees bloomed everywhere, half-submerged in pools of water where leaves and sky met in  curdled reflections. In the stark sunlight everything looked too vivid to be real. He felt he was riding through a photograph.

Glancing around, he parked in the high grass about a mile away from the temple. He carried his shoes. There was no one. The temple rose before him. Hall waited there.  

Barefoot, he entered the cool shadows, climbed the steep steps and paused beneath an arch, “I need to give you something.” Standing close enough to see the sweat on Hall’s brow, he looked into his eyes, searching for a reason to stop. He reached out and struck the man. Hall lost consciousness. He gripped Hall’s neck, pressing on the stun spot, before rolling the limp body over the edge to fall from the temple into the grass.

Shoes in hand, he walked back to the motorcycle, remembering the times he had let himself be crushed. The prostration was over.   

-a short story by Margo Fortuny, with photographs taken in Burma.

The Kneeling

Photograph by Rasha Kahil

http://rashakahilblog.blogspot.com

The piano was playing. She bowed to her leg, almost touching the barre. An arch, a gesture. The muscles kept repeating a rhythmic prayer. Pointed toes orbited over the floorboards. An hour passed. The piano stopped. She passed through rooms, picking up her bag, changing into tennis shoes, brushing loose strands off her damp forehead.

Outside the sky was a canvas. Clouds dissolved into swathes of bleeding violets. Her bicycle was waiting, locked up chastely. She hopped on the red frame and pedaled home, enjoying the wind singing around her face. The road ahead dimmed during the long ride and the hair stood up on her arms. The trees hid in the dark waiting for the moon. Turning left, she was home.

The house was quiet. A mound of grey fur napped in the corner of the kitchen. She reached for an apple and a knife. The apple was peeled and sliced at the table, devoured and finished.

Tomorrow’s our last morning, she thought in the shower, adjusting the faucets. She traced a picture of his face in the steamed glass. One night, they had sat in the green tub with the shower running, pretending it was raining, kissing between mouthfuls of cava. When he complained about the drink she poured the rest over his head. He tried to fold her like paper but there wasn’t room so she leaned back and leapt out and ran laughing to the next room, leaving a trail of wet footprints…

Washed, rinsed, dried, wrapped in a big coarse towel, she retreated to bed. Alarm set, she curled up in sheets like peach skin.

It was still dark when she slipped on the white cotton dress, clean tights, a holey blue sweater (the one she never washed) and boots. Her reflection was pleasing. She approached her bicycle in habitual steps. The pedaling woke her up.

This day had happened so many times. They liked to meet early. At first it was under the pretence of having company whilst running. Then they ended up walking in the bluish light, exploring the woods, and eventually pressing each other against the bark under the trellis of branches. Her mind roamed down familiar paths.

Hopping off the bike, she led it to the clearing where they met. The air smelled of wet dirt. Faint from excitement and a hunger that hummed in her belly she advanced. He was there. He looked fitting among the trees, shadowy in dawn, a Pan with dark locks brushing against explicit cheekbones. His lips were crimson and his eyes shone as if he had been enjoying wine. Smiling, speaking, their hands melded together.

He took a kiss and they began to walk over crisp leaves. The day was emerging. This was where she wanted to be and yet she couldn’t savor it. Already she felt his absence weighing on her, carving up their embraces. Anticipating the loss, she was distant. A small nausea and a swallow in her throat distracted from his words and warm hands. Some fingers were adorned with cuts: gifts from his guitar strings. His music had inspired first her admiration and then resentment.

They paused, looked at each other, cheeks flushed, lips biting. Faces close like blades of grass; they sunk down to become entangled one more time. Cottony arms surrounded her, pulling her near. His heart was beating against her chest. Forgetting the futility of nostalgia, she tried to memorize the kisses. He smelled like clean laundry and maybe he had frosted flakes for breakfast. These details were silently collected. They rolled over and she wandered into his eyes. Touches silenced the thoughts.

Soundless they lay there, waiting for the sun to warm them. Giving up, the couple stood, adjusted themselves and returned to the clearing. Shivering a little, there was not much to say now. They wheeled their bicycles to the road. She held him for some time, drowning in the minutes, breathing him. She drew away, said goodbye. One last fever on the lips. Dazed by the parting, she climbed over the metal and rode away. A song played in her head.

-Margo Fortuny

Photograph by Ryan McGinley

http://ryanmcginley.com/moonmilk

Meander Milk

I study him. He wears no shirt, just cut-off faded jeans, a white flower behind his ear. A hand-rolled cigarette resides in one hand. His bony frame leans forward to look at a calico cat hopping like a rabbit across a garden. The air is silent and moist. Mopeds sputter periodically. The sky darkens, the ocean joins it, and the moon finds a place in the folds of blue. With salted hair and feverish eyes and burnt shoulders and moles polka-dotting his back he is the most astounding creature I have ever seen. I won’t let him know, he wouldn’t believe me anyway. So I look away and ask him what we should do about dinner.

After dinner we share a bottle of the second-cheapest whiskey we can find. Bantering, hopeful, we sit on the whitewashed stairs and observe people trotting by. Goat roasts somewhere and cigarettes are smoked. The beach extends itself into my mind. We hasten.

      The sun rises revealing a beach full of people intertwined. Kicked off sandals sleep next to green beer bottles in the sand. The waves seem hesitant in their approach. Everyone is silenced by immense concentration. We look at each other, aware of our ongoing solitudes. He shrugs. We walk to a bus stop. Kissless times last longer.