Ezéchiel Pailhès (born May 23, 1976, in Villiers-le-Bel, France) is a French singer, songwriter and composer. He is best known as one half of the electronic music duo Nôze, alongside Nicolas Sfintescu. Alongside this project, he has developed for over a decade a distinctive body of solo work at the crossroads of chanson, instrumental music, and film composition.
Between 1988 and 2000, he studied classical music with Sandrine Steciw and later at the Conservatoire of Beauvais in the class of Brigitte Trémolières. He also trained in jazz at CIM, France’s renowned school for jazz and contemporary music, studying with Bojan Zulfikarpašić, as well as at the Aubervilliers Conservatory. He continued his studies at the National Conservatory of Marseille, where he graduated in 2000 from the jazz program.
In 2001, he met Nicolas Sfintescu, with whom he founded the electronic duo Nôze. Between 2005 and 2015 the group released five albums on Circus Company and Get Physical, becoming one of the notable acts of the European electronic music scene. Alongside his work with Nôze, Pailhès also composes for film. In 2009, he co-wrote with David Lafore the soundtrack for Bancs publics (Versailles Rive Droite), directed by Bruno Podalydès.
He launched his solo career in 2013 with Divine, a mostly instrumental debut album released on Circus Company. In 2017, he further developed his identity as a singer with Tout va bien, notably featuring the track Éternel été, which received several months of airplay on Radio Nova, France Inter, and FIP. With Oh! (2020) and Mélopée (2022), his third and fourth albums, he explored a more literary universe inspired by the poetry of William Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda, Renée Vivien, and Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. In 2024, with Ventas Rumba, he returned to a fully instrumental format recorded in Estonia, reconnecting with his primary instrument, the piano, blended with warm-sounding synthesize
His sixth album, SOL, opens a new chapter. Through twelve songs infused with a sunny, wandering spirit, Ezéchiel Pailhès explores saudade—the bittersweet feeling of longing deeply rooted in Brazilian culture. Inspired by Brazilian popular music, he adapts into French several classics of samba and bossa nova from the 1950s to the 1970s. Recorded between Montreuil (France) and Rio de Janeiro, the album blends piano, synthesizers, and delicate orchestrations, bringing French chanson and Brazilian music into dialogue through a distinctly contemporary approach.
