Articles Written By: guuzbourg

Best of the Best 2014 (part 1)

A few days ago, we asked you to send in the songs and/or albums that rocked your world the hardest this year. In the coming days, the FS-writers (Steve, Sky, FransS, Mark, Guuzbourg, David) will post their picks.
Below are a few contributions by readers (and one regular contribuant).
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Mart writes: ‘My Song of the Year is ‘Il pleut’ by Elodie Frégé, from the Bande à Renaud-tribute album. Her voice, the crescendo in the music and Renaud’s remarkable lyrics. He’s a wordsmith in the trues sense. I love the whole album, the covers really add to the original versions.’

Dany (from Germany) writes: ‘My French song of the year is by Les Maggy Bolle, “La Cougar”. Maggy´s from Besançon. I saw her live on a deep romantic summer nigh in the south of France.


Les Maggy Bolle – la cougar – Lure le 13… door Ricky_Banlieue

Iris writes: ‘Chaleur Humaine by Christine and the Queens is the best in the Francophone world that happened to us. It’s a perfect and very original mix of French and English, I just keep playing it.’

Steve (manager of Vanessa Contenay-Quinones) writes: ‘Well Guuz as much as i hate to be blindingly obvious, I genuinely am in love with Vanessa’s bitter sweet and sensual track ‘Pardonne’ taken from her latest LP ‘Made In France!’

Sami writes: ‘So far, my pick would go to Yelle’s ‘Complètement fou’, it has as usual some great energic and danceable tunes, and it’s even better in concert.’

Sami adds: ‘My favorite song is Camelia Jordana’s ‘Ma gueule’, beautiful voice and lyrics,the Ethio-jazz sound, I’ve been really impressed and hope that her next album will be the masterpiece she tried to make with this one.’

Marie Warnant

Pretty soon, we will round up the best of the best, the albums and/or songs that reached places that we never thought would reach (in/on/at) us. Some readers already send us their picks, you still can.
Marie Warnant
My choice for Album of the Year was made, when all of a sudden Marie Warnant‘s third album came flying by. Released in April, but I recently bumped into it. And boy, what a beauty this is. She took a left turn, trading her gentle rock-chanson sound for a more leftfield option. NYXTAPE is inspired ‘by influences as divers as Arto Lindsay, Georges Moustaki and Tom Zé and mixes references from Lizzy Mercier Descloux to David Byrne in her own unique way’, this bio says.
To me, the new sound reminded me of Marie’s fellow Belgian acts like Allez Allez, Antena and some artists on the heralded Les Disques du Crépuscule label from the 80s. It’s funky, it’s quirky, it’s really, really good.
Listen:

or

Laurence Hélie

  • Posted on 07/12/2014
  • /Under Video

Mark Sullivan writes:

Live film of the charming country-folk writer-singer Laurence Hélie is rare, so her appearance on the CBC’s Acadian channel in New Brunswick is a welcome chance to appreciate her skill. She guested 9 November on the weekly show ‘Méchante Soirée’ which is filmed in a gastropub in the capital, Moncton.

Laurence has a particular skill in taking a middle-of-the-road song and reviving it by giving it her country tang, this time with ‘Allô maman bobo’ by the seventies songwriter Alain Souchon.

And here is her own hit ‘De tout et de rien’

Another elegant TV appearance, this time in duo, is here

To recall her best-known cover, Patrick Norman’s ‘Quand on est en amour’, I have posted a new slide-show on Youtube here.

De Staat goes Serge

Dutch leftfield rockband De Staat released Vinticious Versions, an EP with radical different versions of their own songs. On one track they sound like D’Angelo, on this one they channel Beastie Boys and on the one below they re-create a Gainsbourgian atmosphere. On female vocals you hear Janne Schra. THIS is the ‘official’ version.

French Band Aid

  • Posted on 02/12/2014
  • /Under Video

With Vanessa Paradis, Carla Bruni, Louane, Zaz, Amandine Bourgeois, Les Plastiscines and Benjamin Biolay. And it’s for a good cause (anti-Ebola). So there.

Heidi Happy

Missed this in February, but now’s the good season for this video:

More on Swiss singer Heidi Happy HERE

One year. One track. One album

  • Posted on 29/11/2014
  • /Under Musique

bestofthebestofthebestcoverThe end is nigh, so we’re ranking up the best of the best. Albums, tracks, videos…it’s listing time.
Instead of making Top 100s, 50s or 10s, here on FillesSourires we’re picking one. One French track, or one French album. That knocked us off of our feet in the past year. One album that we will treasure, defend, love, for the rest of our lives (probably).
With ‘we’, we don’t mean just the writing staff of FillesSourires (Guuzbourg, Maks, FransS, Steve, David, Sky) or regular contributors, no, we mean ALL of us. And you. Yes, you, reading this. You come by every now & then to check what’s up in the French-speaking pop world of FS. You fell in love with that one song, that one album in 2014. So write that up. One sentence is enough. Email us (guuzbourg at gmail dot com) before Dec 12.
We’re looking forward to the end.

Janne Schra sings Gainsbourg

  • Posted on 26/11/2014
  • /Under Musique

IMG_1559Remember that one night, where the lovely Janne Schra sang various Gainsbourg songs together with Mick Harvey? No? You weren’t there? Well, miss Schra just uploaded a bunch of tracks recorded that night in Tilburg. Pictured above: Xanthe Waite (left) and Janne Schra, the back-up singers (with solo spots) during the tribute show. Pic by Gert Gering.
Have a listen:

Slowdance

  • Posted on 25/11/2014
  • /Under Musique

Guestpost! Joris Stereo on Slowdance:
image2
It’s always a bit disappointing when you think you’ve found a brand new band to get all excited about and then it turns out they’ve broken up already. And I wás getting pretty excited by Slowdance and their wave-y indiepop. They hail – or maybe rather: hailed – from Brooklyn but have a Filles Sourires-worthy singer in Quay Quinn-Settel (pictured). Even though they are no longer a band they still put out a self-titled debutalbum recently. In fact, they are giving it away for free HERE. The two songs especially relevant in the current context, the only two sung in French, are Trio and Disco D’ete. The latter being my current favourite. You can see the band do a third French-language song that’s slightly older and not on the record, called Les Loups, HERE.

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