Articles Written By: Sky

FS Rerun: Philippe Leroy

  • Posted on 12/10/2010
  • /Under Musique

Mais non, this ain’t the actor Philippe Leroy, famous for his roles in Le Trou or Milano Calibro 9. According to this YouTube video, we can gather that French singer Philippe Leroy bleached his mane somewhere along the way and transformed into an artist with a quite particular clothing style, peculiar behaviour, and a haircut that tells stories from a trailer park only the boldest coiffeurs would dare to enter. Before Philippe went there, he looked (see right) pretty much like the guy who stole my sister’s bra at the youth hostel in Antibes as a souvenir, and recorded the French version of The Rubettes’ smash hit Tonight. Some people actually had sex while listening to it.

Philippe Leroy – Ce soir

The Rubettes original, also from 1974, remains a charming bubblegum-meets-glam gem. Twenty-five years later, British intellectuals The Auteurs paid tribute to The Rubettes with one of the finest pop songs of the 90s.

Rubettes – Tonight

Auteurs – The Rubettes

Melody Gardot

  • Posted on 12/10/2010
  • /Under Musique

I’m not exactly an admirer of those after-hours sound smoothies that are sold as ‚vocal jazz’ nowadays. Super-successful Melody Gardot, certainly not French, but a native of the Garden State New Jersey, doubtlessly belongs to that fraction as well, doing more smug’n’snug cuddle harmonies for them latte macchiato sippers who also can’t get enough of that dinner muzak zombification a.k.a. Till Brönner. But revisiting Gardot’s 2009 album My One and Only Thrill – now out as a new edition with bonus remixes –, I must admit that Melody’s self-written Les Etoiles has class, groove, and tendresse, and feels a bit like a missing link between Peggy Lee, Bud Shank’s cool jazz meets easy listening sauce and the nocturne bossa swing of Coralie Cléments Salle des pas perdus. Plus a charming vibraphone, too.

Melody Gardot – Les etoiles

In Bed with Gaelle

  • Posted on 11/10/2010
  • /Under Musique

On Yann Tiersen’s brand-new sixth studio album, you will find very few traces of the film composer who decorated Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain with sweet Gallic piano melancholia in 2001. Dust Lane, recorded on the small island of Quessant near the coast of Britanny – also home of the Quessant or Breton Dwarf, one of the smallest breeds of sheep in the world – with the assistance of Gravenhurst drummer Dave Collingwood and Jonathan Morali of Syd Matters, might be Tiersen’s most mature album to date, oscillating between morphing synthesizer soundscapes, spiritual chaos, and multi-layered contemplation. Gorgeous climax of the forever changing moods of Dust Lane is Fuck Me, a duet with Breton singer Gaelle Kerrien, evolving from a solemn folk tune into a somewhat Bowie-esque, guitar-driven hymn of sex and cinemascope innocence: We need to live it. Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, and make me come again.

Yann Tiersen w/ Gaelle Kerrien – Fuck Me

Le Tour #5

  • Posted on 30/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

Though Thomas Bohnet, compilation svengali behind the Le Tour collections, lives in my old ’hood and still only a few kilometres away, we have never met. That may have to do with tastes. Le Tour volumes 1-4 were competently anthologized, but there always was some diminutive irritation factor. Now, with Le Tour #5, I figured it out. The assortment contains impressive and appealing stuff, like Féfé’s Clichés, Biolay’s Padam, or a minor track by FS faves Mickey 3D, but some songs here, despite being French, would easily qualify for Munich’s famous Oktoberfest: The opener, La Crise by L’Homme Parle, features German boof-tah at its very grooviest social-democratic street festival feel, and the As de Trèfle and Babylon Circus tracks are surely great, if … well, if you’re into Stimmungsmusik of this kind. I’m more into Mélanie Pain, also on Thomas’ compilation. Kind of a French Schlager as well, but a more sexy one.

Mélanie Pain – Ignore-Moi

Youn Sun Nah

  • Posted on 29/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

On her brand new seventh album Same Girl, South Korean jazz singer Youn Sun Nah covers Rodgers/ Hammerstein, Randy Newman, Metallica, and My Name is Carnival by Jackson C. Frank, the legendary white bluesman with the saddest life story you might ever read. She also interpretes La chanson d’Hélène, originally written by Philippe Sarde and Jean-Loup Dabadie for the movie Les choses de la vie, and does a remarkable job. A daring one as well, since it’s surely impossible to capture the magic Romy Schneider created with her vocals forty years ago. The male talking part, done by Michel Piccoli on the original recording, went to French romancier, musicien and plasticien Roland Brival, whose last, quite intriguing album Vol de Nuit could be described as kind of a missing link between Arthur H. and a 50s St. Germain jazz nightclub.

Youn Sun Nah/ Roland Brival – La chanson d’Hélène

Romy Schneider/ Michel Piccoli – La chanson d’Hélène

EXTRA:

FS reader Teyo d’Unux brought a sweet English language version of the chanson to our attention, the Dreammakers’ Helen’s Song. And since he labeled it a perfect tune for autumn:

Dreammakers – Helen’s Song

EVEN MORE:
Francoiz Breut – La chanson d’Hélène
Berry – La chanson d’Hélène
Get Well Soon – La chanson d’Hélène
Marina Celeste – La chanson d’Hélène

Serge’s Swimsuit Selection

  • Posted on 28/09/2010
  • /Under Video

Les filles n’ont aucun degout? Serge caresse tendresse style, when smoking was still allowed in the bar of his favorite … erm, sauna.

FS Dans Le Cinéma: Éric Demarsan

  • Posted on 27/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

L’armée des ombres, filmed in 1969, was Jean-Pierre Melville’s gloomy and highly gripping account of the Résistance featuring Lino Ventura (see right) in one of his finest roles – a sombre, sober movie with one of the most hopeless endings in French cinema history. The film was scored by the relatively unknown Éric Demarsan who also wrote the music for the TV series Belle et Sébastien (which obviously quite impressed some British folk popsters), and Melville’s bleak caper movie Le cercle rouge. Demarsan’s intricately crafted, highly accomplished bande originale for L’armée des ombres culminates in his Thème de Gerbier, evolving from a painfully melancholic piano melody into a heartbreakingly beautiful landscape of the French soul.

Éric Demarsan – Thème de Gerbier

FS Exclusive: Zaz Meets Serge

  • Posted on 27/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

About two weeks ago, we already posted a live version of Zaz’s splendid Piaf cover Dans la rue here. Since she with the husky voice is a dedicated Gainsbourg aficionado as well, she also played a sparse, and highly intense manouche-style version of Serge’s Ces petits riens during the same gig, backed by bassist Mathieu Verlot and guitarist Guillaume Juhel. You will find this cover neither on her recent no. 1 album nor anywhere on the net. The song was recorded during an intimate live performance at MDR radio station, Halle, Germany, with an audience of ten (!) handpicked and damn lucky guests.

Zaz – Ces petits riens (live)

Ces petits riens, written in 1964, may not be among the most popular Gainsbourg chansons, but has been covered by several high-class artists. Serge’s own version, using a typewriter as rhythm instrument, is surely the coolest; he’s on the Deneuve version as well. Here’s both, along with a bunch of other adaptations, including Carla’s English language version … and Guuz might have a few other ones up his sleeve.

Serge Gainsbourg – Ces petits riens

Catherine Deneuve – Ces petits riens

Christiane Canavese – Ces petits riens

Pierre-Alain Goualch – Ces petits riens

Jane Birkin – Ces petits riens

Stacey Kent – Ces petits riens

Zizi Jeanmaire – Ces petits riens

Angélique Kidjo – Ces petits riens

Francoise Hardy – Ces petits riens

Carla Bruni – Those Little Things

Don Nino – Ces petits riens

Elina Duni – Ces petits riens

Natacha Atlas

  • Posted on 27/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

Combining traditional Arabic and African elements with Disco, Drum ’n Bass, and Hindi Pop, Belgium-born singer Natacha Atlas features as one of the premières divas of the cha’abi moderne, a term she invented herself to describe her style. Natacha cooperated with colleagues such as Peter Gabriel, Nigel Kennedy, and Jean-Michel Jarre, but if those names aren’t really your cup of tea, also with British enfant terrible Jah Wobble or French world music entrepreneurs Les Négresses Vertes. She explains the concept of her brand new, tenth album here – last not least, Mounqaliba (In a State of Reversal) stars Le cor, le vent, a fine after-hours piece with wistful accordion, and La nuit est sur la ville, a lightly orient-ified cover version of Francoise Hardy’s 1964 ballad.

Natacha Atlas – Le cor, le vent

Natacha Atlas – La nuit est sur la ville

On her 1998 album Gedida, Natacha already covered another Hardy chanson, the widely popular Mon amie la rose, transferring Hardy’s Gallic teenage melancholy to the dancefloor of Arabian Nights.

Natacha Atlas – Mon amie la rose (Radio Mix)

Zaz Dans La Rue

  • Posted on 14/09/2010
  • /Under Musique

If promo legend is true, Tours-born Isabelle Geffroy sang in the postcard streets of Montmartre before she became a big three-letter-word named ZAZ and won the France Bleu/ Réservoir Generation contest. Released in May, her first, self-titled album rocketed to #1 of the French album charts, with a gracious mixture of blues, bossa, and jazz manouche, featuring also Guillaume Juhel (don’t miss his lovely version of Serge’s La Javanaise on his MySpace site), a young French guitarist extraordinaire with Carla already hot on his heels, you bet. Vocal-wise, ZAZ’s husky voice surely doesn’t really qualify for a fille fragile … but perfectly for an Edith Piaf cover like Dans la rue. The studio version can be found on her album, this live version can only be found at FS. Recorded September 7, 2010 at Halle, Germany for German MDR radio station, it displays as well modesty as class. If you can’t wait: More ZAZ very soon.

ZAZ – Dans la rue (live)

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