Margot Zoé – “Elevation”

Margot Zoé’s debut album “Elevation” is a solid introduction to what she’s capable of as a jazz artist. Coming out of Metz, France, she’s built something here that mixes jazz with poetry, and it actually holds together really well.

The whole album takes inspiration from Watership Down, that old rabbit novel, which is a weird choice but somehow it clicks. She wrote 11 original songs and put music to two poems from the book for the first time. The tracks shift between quiet, reflective jazz and bigger, more cinematic moments with folk influences woven in.

You can tell she studied at the Conservatoire of Metz because there’s real skill in how everything’s arranged, but she keeps it approachable. The European folk bits mixed with contemporary jazz give the record its own identity. It doesn’t sound like she’s copying anyone in particular. My favorite pieces are Black Rabbit, Hazel, and Fiver’s Dream.

Her voice has this warmth to it that pulls you in, given everything she’s been through personally, you can hear that experience coming through without her needing to spell it out. The album never rushes anywhere, she clearly took her time putting this together.

If you like jazz that experiments but stays listenable, this is worth checking out. The whole thing tells a story without beating you over the head with it, follow Margot Zoé on social media to stay in the loop with her releases for the rest of 2025.