From an upcoming EP eaturing covers by Lana del Rey, Wham!, Catherine Loeb and Air.
Articles Written By: guuzbourg
Klô Pelgag
And another guestpost by David!
What a pleasant surprise…..a few weeks ago, posting on Grenadine, watching her Marion video, another suggested video was for the work of another Quebec native, Klo Pelgag‘s “Comme des Rames”. Beautiful song, playful smile at the end. Where to begin? Klô Pelgag (an unlikely contraction of her mellifluous born-name Chloe Pelletier-Gagnon) works hard to make art, crafting songs in an effort she describes as creating “landscapes for the blind”.
She has help from her brother, Matthieu (colorful and intricate arrangements), and also from a gang of talented and pretty friends (meaning the young ladies, of course). Perhaps the closest thing I can recall to Klô’s debut album from last year, “L’alchimie des monstres”, blending theater and music, is the work of Amelie-Les-Crayons (amiably described as a “nut”, and said to be very fun to see in concert). While Klô’s music touches dark areas, it never loses its sense of fun – one article draws a comparison to Maurice Sendak. Her voice, at times, reminds me of another Chloe, Chloe Lacasse (who’s second album is due out in a few weeks), and La fièvre des fleurs with its playful hop in range reminded me a bit of Ingrid St-Pierre. Klô’s received a fair amount of positive press – here’s a nice article that provides a bit of background.
Klô and her merry band are now in Europe touring, complete with Madmoizelle video, and their CD has now been released in France. (If you happen to go see them, Klô encourages you to come dressed wild.) “Comme des Rames” and “La fievre des fleurs” are something special, but I enjoy it all. Some of the songs stretched a bit too far for my ear to follow initially, rewarding at second listen, part of the fun as Klô with her friends takes us down an unsuspected path.
Lena Luce
Guestpost by David!
‘Once again going through the internet equivalent of the used music racks, I came across an artist I missed. Lena Luce is an old-fashioned style chanteuse, with short skirt, heels, and a smile in her voice. Charming. Her first album, “Metropolitaine”, came out last year, and can be found on Spotify.
Here’s a nice interview from Le Courrier Picard (they liked Lena enough to write about her twice), where they describe the album as organized as a walk through Paris, a walk from old to new, and a bit about growing up. Her training in voice rings clear from the first notes, carrying her tunes with an easy sway, as in Lamarck – Dans le Peau.
Reminds me a bit of a Filles Sourires favorite, Austine, but her voice is perhaps closer to Lisa Portelli’s. Good company on a cold winter’s day.’ Listen to Lena cover Coeur de Pirate (and more) on Soundcloud.
Cléa Vincent
Cléa Vincent is ‘France Gall impregnated by Electronic Dance Music-culture’, the ‘Baby Pop of the 10s’ or just ‘young, willing and able’, just like the Minnie Riperton song. She got help from Raphael Léger, of Tahiti 80 fame, and she just released a very, very charming EP with synthified, sun-kissed tracks (sung ‘desafinado’, jus’ like Lio, Isabelle Antena, Elli Medeiros…) that make you long for cocktails, hot summer nights and a dancefloor swarming with coule people. Check out the video, listen to the songs on Bandcamp. But steer clear of that gawdafwul Ace of Base-cover.
‘Quand on est en amour’ 1984-2014
Mark Sullivan looks at the 30-year history of a classic song
‘Quand on est en amour’ is the best-known song written by the Quebec writer and singer of country music Patrick Norman, stage name of Yvon Éthier, born in 1946 in Montréal. He wrote it in 1984, and despite its country-folk character he seems to have performed it from the start in a Middle-of-the-Road style. Its success led him in 1987 to write an English-language version, ‘Only love sets you free’ with rather different lyrics.
Here is Patrick Norman singing in the late 1980s first ‘Quand on est en amour’ and then returning to the stage to sing ‘Only love sets you free’. (You can tell the era from the hairstyles.)
‘Quand on est en amour’, originally a country song, was thus ‘Barry-Manilowed’ to a degree by its own composer. So it is perhaps not surprising that it went on to be covered by crooners like Frank Michael (Belgium’s Andy Williams), the rock-turned-MoR singer Marie-Chantal Toupin and the mainstream country singer Guylaine Tanguay.
Norman himself has not greatly changed his own interpretation, as shown here in 2009 (no longer looking like Peter Sarstedt).
‘Quand on est en amour’, having become an overplayed MoR standard, was ripe for humorous satire. What looked like the ultimate fate of the song was the enjoyable performance by the satirist Gilles Gauthier in early 2000s. He sang lines in voices imitating some well-known people of the time – Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, Pope Jean-Paul II (beautifully done), Charles Aznavour, Peter Falk as Colombo, Bernard Landry the Parti Québecois Prime Minister in 2001-2003, and a wonderful lampoon of the much-mocked René Angelil, husband and manager of Céline Dion.
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With this heritage, it was very brave of Laurence Hélie to take the song and for the first time create a true country-folk version in her debut album of 2010, where it is the final song. Her voice is perfect for the straightforward lyrics, and the arrangement blows away the MoR tone and image that the song had acquired.
The lyric, which I have translated directly into English of ‘Quand on est en amour’ is below Laurence Hélie’s fine performance here:
You can find my translation among the comments.
Exotica + Bertrand Burgalat, Hardy cover
From Exotica’s new album Le vierge et le Lion:
From this compilation, a Francoise Hardy cover by Exotica:
Liz van Deuq
Guestpost! Oscar on Liz van Deuq:
She sings and plays piano: let me introduce Vanessa Dequiedt, a French thirtysomething girl from Orléans. Since 2008 she performs as Liz Van Deuq. She studied piano for fifteen years and has a degree in musicology. Her first album is called ‘Anna-Liz’ and is not released by a big record company. So she is not backed by a lot of money to do large promotion campaigns or make fancy videoclips. Nonetheless last year she did receive a price for independent productions (Prix Autoproduction Secam) and she was picked up by a lot of French radio- and televisonstations. Until somewhere in june she will be touring with her trio through France. Try to catch her if you can. She is very funny on stage and makes beautiful music. Like this song ‘Des Rides’ (Wrinkles) about her grandma. Also very nice: Au conservatoire. More songs on Bandcamp.
Barbara Opsomer (slight return)
Belgian actress Barbara Opsomer is a beautiful girl. If you’re not convinced by the picture posted here, look at this one. Or this one. In the first linked picture, Barbara wears lingerie. In the second one, she’s topless (without showing it all). Is it sexist to link to those pictures? Anti-feminist? I always considered this blog to be female-appreciative, a way to applaud, laud, honor women in music. Sure, there’s no need to link to, or posts sexy pictures but I think these girls and women weren’t coerced in having those pics taken. I don’t think I’m being sexist when I state that I enjoy beautiful pictures of beautiful girls. But there’s a fine line.
The other day, I received a promo package of Barbara Opsomers pr-guy, containing a condom in a pink Barbara Opsomer-package, a small bottle of wodka, a pin-on button with her face, a picture of an old couple, and a usb-card with pictures of Barbara smoking (posted here) and drinking beer. What’s the message here? Is Opsomer just a fun-loving, outgoing girl with no issues about her sexuality, or is this to emphasive her, dare I say it, slutty side? Jury’s still out.
All of this to promote a very nice acoustic song. Barbara’s in the same pond as Melanie Laurent, kind of the same voice, also an actress, gentle song. A song that, to me, doesn’t need condoms or wodka to draw attention. What do you think?
Barbara Opsomer – Un dimanche en province (wav.file!) CLIP