Articles Written By: Sky

Siobhan Wilson II

  • Posted on 02/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

The reason why Siobhan Wilson’s soberly titled album Songs slipped under the FS radar last year might be due to the fact that it contains all English-language songs but one, a luminous adaptation of Jacques Brel’s Voir un ami pleurer – as simple as intimately gripping, as quietly lyrical as vibrant, the work of a Scottish-French fille fragile to boot. If you haven’t listened to her gorgeous version of La Javanaise, click here. Other videos here, here, and here.

Siobhan Wilson – Voir un ami pleurer
Jacques Brel – Voir un ami pleurer

Miss Wilson’s English-language side is decidedly folky, with some twists, especially when combining a hip-hop/ r&b rhythm with a minimalistic cello, as featured on Getting Me Down. Extra: DJ Anoraak’s remix of the song with a sweeping disco-pop beat. Jolie one.

Siobhan Wilson – Getting Me Down

Siobhan Wilson – Getting Me Down (Anoraak Remix)

FS Rerun: Alain Bashung

  • Posted on 01/05/2011
  • /Under Musique

When Alain Bashung hit it big in 1981 – Gaby oh Gaby was in the French charts for 54 weeks and sold a million copies –, they called him the „Johnny Hallyday de la New Wave“. Actually, the Gallic super-antistar who garnered eleven Victoires de la Musiques awards between 1985 and 2009, sounded all-too-often more like Paolo Conte merging David Bowie attitude with an unhealthy Dylan obsession, stadium rock style – including a whole lot of obnoxious Frenchican rock bummers (especially the Tom Waits/ Michel Sardou amalgam of 2008’s Bleu Pétrole), but also some significantly dazzling results, especially on 82’s Play Blessures, then teaming up with lyricist Serge Gainsbourg who probably would have liked to inflict these wounds himself: Combining lupine lamentos with No Wave splinters, this is French Rock’s Metallic K.O., with unmistakably hypnotic qualities.

Alain Bashung – J’envisage

Alain Bashung – Bistouri scalpel

Alain Bashung – Trompé d’érection

Face/ Off

  • Posted on 30/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

On his brand-new album I Wish I Was Someone Else, German singer Patrick Zimmer alias Finn employs a well-tried, though not very well-worn concept when covering mostly so-called classic radio smash hits from the 70s and 80s, Lo-fi production style. Flogging braindead horses like I Shot the Sheriff or Tina Turner’s Private Dancer bare bones folkie-style doesn’t make them the slightest bit more thrilling … in short, it’s all going nowhere in a hurry. With the exception of a quite upbeat cover of Ne dis rien, originally rendered by Serge G. and Godard favorite Anna Karina in 1967, in some studio booth Serge mistook for a boudoir again. Finn’s partner in crime is a sweetly knowing, sadly anonymous, and surely German female voice. Must be the way she walks: Who’s that girl?

Finn – Ne dis rien

Serge & Anna Karina – Ne dis rien

Try a Little Tenderness

  • Posted on 30/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

At the reception after yesterday’s royal wedding, Sir Elton John told William, Katie, and the French ambassador a fascinating story. While driving along the promenade of St. Tropez in 1980, he was so overwhelmed by a chanson on the radio of his Ferrari Testarossa that he pulled to the side of the road to listen. On the air was Janic Prevost’s synth-driven disco-pop drama J’veux d’la tendresse; Elton was so moved that he covered the song a few months later, in English as well as in French for the Gallic edition of his 1981 album The Fox. The French ambassador had to admit he wasn’t familiar with Mademoiselle Prevost, and shook his head again when Sir Elton hummed the tune for him. Slightly frowning, William grabbed his fourth champagne flûte from a lackey’s tray, while Katie said she had heard that melody before: Wasn’t it called I Will Survive?

Janic Prevost – J’veux d’la tendresse

Elton John – J’veux de la tendresse

FS Rerun: How Sad Venice Can Be

  • Posted on 27/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

Charles Aznavour? Wasn’t that the somewhat square old entertainer in the grey suit you saw on dozens of awful tv shows all those years ago? Maybe. Aznavour also was Charlie, the forlorn dude in Truffaut’s Tirez sur le pianiste (see pic) who smoked all those cigarettes like nobody had it done before, shared the bed with Michèle Mercier and Nicole Berger, and murmered some of the coolest lines ever to be uttered between love and loneliness („Silence is amorous complicity“). Sadness was also one of the keywords in his chansons, as well in Que c’est triste Venise, a sentimental kitsch masterpiece remade by the equally great Bobby Darin in 1965, U.S. grand scope showroom heartbreak style.
Charles Aznavour – Que c’est triste Venise
Bobby Darin – Venice Blue

Bonus: The Other Serge revealing where to find the gondolas of your mind.

Serge Reggiani – Venise n’est pas en Italie

Siobhan Wilson

  • Posted on 14/04/2011
  • /Under Video

Gee, those red fingernails moving along the strings. Two words: Forget Zaz.

Pop Bâtard XIX: Je veux te baiser

  • Posted on 12/04/2011
  • /Under Video

“He said: I’d like to offer you some flowers.” DJ Le Clown’s take on French TV’s most famous moment. Adults only, please.

Pop Bâtard XVII: Burn Da Funk

  • Posted on 12/04/2011
  • /Under Musique

French bootlegger Fissunix, who brought the world indispensable mash-ups like Gangsta Barbapapa, is surely an entrepreneur sauvage – see his website as well. His most daring, dubious and deranged venture to date might well be the fusion of Deep Purple’s 1974 bluntrocker Burn and Gallic house chefs Daft Punk’s 1997 club classic Da Funk. Recommended by FS powerbroker Roy Black with the following words: “Sick, and therefore somehow … erm, contagious.”

Fissunix – Burn Da Funk

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