Meimuna (Cyrielle Formaz, from Switzerland) is a current fave on this weblog. And when she (again) teams up with Dutch producer/arranger Ella van der Woude, it’s a pretty safe bet the outcome will be great. And it is. This song, about existential doubts & fears, has the right atmosphere, the bassline, the choirs, the synth strings, that add up to a track one could float on for days on end.
A very breathy new single by Calypso Valois, which is nice:
The two girls in the video are the main characters in the movie Les Immortels/Stereo Girls. See the trailer below. From the press info: “1990s, South of France. Charlotte and Liza, inseparable 17-year-old best friends, live for the thrill of music and the exciting promise of freedom. They’re opposites in every way but together, they’re unstoppable. As the right-wing party starts spreading in their hometown, they dream of moving to Paris, to fulfill their passion for music.But when an unexpected tragedy strikes, Charlotte is left alone, standing on the threshold of adulthood.”
Saw this on the Facebook-page of Françoiz Breut, so you know this gotta be good. Aurélie Muller is NOT the French swimmer, but a fellow Bruxelloise (not sure if that’s a word) composer. She’s made the soundtrack to an imaginary film. It sounds pretty orange, breezy and Air-like, at least on this track:
From her Bandcamp: ‘The Bande originale du film imaginaire d’Aurélie Muller is conceived as the soundtrack to a film that endlessly rewrites itself in the listener’s mind.
The album unfolds through warm instrumentals and songs, blending organic textures, real-life sounds and gentle melodies. Light is omnipresent: seaside landscapes, heat, slow movements, even the night feels warm.’
Been gushing about Thaïs on this blog, so when she’s part of a fun project I am all ears. Super Plage, maker of sexy French electronic beach massage music, asked Thaïs to join him on a cover of Pierre Lapointe’s storming Deux Par Deux Rassemblés. ‘The only album me and my mom loved to listen to together’, SPwrites on his insta. Canadien big shot Lapointe is a Quebecoise force for 20 years now, and Deux Par Deux Rassemblés is probably his biggest hit. Super Plage and Thaïs added some fx, but the effectivity of the original is still in tact.
Ah, dear Emily. In 2006, this blog agreed that Em was a mix of ‘veiled melancholy, and a particular mix of smiles and sorrow’. Comparisons to 70s singer-songwriters were drawn, to Shivaree, to Blossom Dearie. L’autre bout du monde was, and still is, a very good debut album. That now celebrates its 20th birthday. And because of that, Emily released a modular mix version of the title track, which is very very nice:
This is the more acoustic first version:
Not the first time Emily revisited her song:
And a live version:
Wizzz is a series of albums that features fairly obscure French yeye-pop and psych from the 60s and 70s. On the newest edition, there are two quite great female sung contributions. Annie Girardot was an actress (150 films!) who sang incidentally. This track is from the movie Erotissimo, a film about a housewife who feels left out when everything and everyone around her talks about, and shows sex. It features Serge Gainsbourg, too. See a clip here.
The story of the song Zoé began when Pierre Dorsay, artistic director at Vogue Records, asked Swiss singer and musician Pierre Alain to write a song for a new female singer. The inspiration came when he realized that Zoé (the artist’s name) was also the name of France’s first atomic battery, created in 1948, which consisted of uranium oxide immersed in heavy water! The lyrics reflect a bubbling energy that must be handled with caution, while the instrumentation echoes this atomic theme, notably with the use of a theremin.
Zoé’s career lasted only as long as a single 45 RPM, but it seems Christine Fontane was the vocalist behind this pseudonym, who is known for several EPs, a good “popcorn” album in 1964, and a handful of children’s singles in the ’70s. Regardless, the photograph on the cover is of a different girl entirely.
And yet another Maude (see post below). A spectacular first single by French-Canadian singer Maude Loue, who debuted last year in this duet:
Maude’s first solo single refers to British dream pop (that janglin’ guitar), to Daniel Bélanger (one of her heroes, among Bashung and Marie-Pierre Arthur). A ‘chrysalide’ is the inactive, armored stage of an insect (such as a butterfly or moth) between the larva (caterpillar) and adult form. Let’s keep watching Maude Loue, see how she develops.
Maude from Montreal makes music since the early 2010s, and refers often to the 60s heydays of Françoise H. and the like. Melancholy moods, marvellously made. A new album is upcoming, this is one of the singles. Love that twangin’ guitar: