Musique

Bastien Lallemant, Vincent Liben

Not often do we feature male singers on this blog, but when it comes to Bastien Lallemant and Vincent Liben, sheer quality urges us to urge you to take note. Plus the fact that they duet with some lovely filles.

Bastien Lallemant takes his time when he records – La Maison Haute follows 2010’s Le Verger. Musically, he’s on par with Dominiqu Ané and Bertrand Belin – carefully crafted chansons with hints of Americana. Think of a stripped down, late-night Calexico. French reviews of La Maison Haute mention Gainsbourg’s masterpiece Melody Nelson – apparently, La Maison Haute is his take on L’Hotel Particulier. Hear the lush strings in Un million d’Années (below) to get a taste, but no mention of underaged redheads ran over by Rolls Royces, tho. Lallemant made this album with help from a string of likeminded artists: JP Nataf, Seb Martel, Katel, Maissiat, Albin de la Simone and Francoiz Breut. The latter sings a beautiful duet (Le Vieil Amour) that’s not on Soundcloud or YouTube alas, check Spotify and/or Deezer.
This lead track is also quite nice:

Belgian counterpart Vincent Liben has a thing for Serge G. as well. Animalé is his second solo-album (he was member of Mud Flow), the first album featured a great duet with Berry (clip). This time, girlfriend Lisza backs him up on the gorgeous (and very Gainsbourgian) L’ennui. Animalé has lush strings as well (Sous les draps, Lila) and has more ‘oomph’ than Lallemant’s offering – just a fact, not a value judgement. Both are great albums.
VL’s album is on Youtube, some tracks are on Soundcloud.

Lisbonne Télégramme

  • Posted on 20/04/2015
  • /Under Musique

Lisbonne TelegrammeLisbonne Télégramme came about as the result of long distance emailing between Maritza Bossé-Pelchat and François Dufault of Montréal’s The Blue Seeds. Maritza (originally a contestant on the inaugural season of the French-Canadian TV show Star Académie), had taken a sabbatical from Québec in 2012 and was holed-up in the beautiful port city of Lisbon. The correspondence between the pair cemented their collaboration and upon her return to Canada, Maritza and François enlisted fellow The Blue Seeds members Martin Farmer and Eric Rathé, and Lisbonne Télégramme was born.

The fruits of their labours is the band’s debut album, “Miroir d’Automne”, a collection of nine intensely melancholic, atmospheric and spellbinding songs of love – or more accurately, hurt – hope and fear and introduces us to Maritza, who demonstrates that she would be more at home on “La Voix” than in any ‘Star Academy’.

The album opens with melancholy “Au loin” a deceptively simple country-folk tinged number that features a gorgeous weeping slide guitar and introduces us to Maritza’s voice – mournful, seductive, hypnotic.

Theme of love – or more often and accurately, aching hurt – are ones that recurs over and over again. The overwhelming mood of melancholy that is “Je n’ose plus” and a middle eight of sombre piano that perfectly captures the mood of the song, while “Autumn mirrors” features a haunting piano melody which focus attention on the beguiling vocals. The song features deft touches of violin and harmonious choruses, especially on the angelic coda.

And then there are the songs that highlight the pain of separation, especially “Où es-tu?”, a song framed by Sophie Trudeau’s (of Montréal’s avant-garde post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor) sympathetic violin, its omnipresence during the song’s chorus amplifies the hurt that distance brings.

However the two standout tracks upon first listening are “Fugitive”, with its majestic Mellotron and heavily reverbed guitar that creates a soundtrack that wouldn’t feel out of place in a Sergio Leone western. There’s an orchestral quality that is perfectly married to Maritza’s deeply soulful voice. And then there’s “Bientôt”, a song which features heavily in reviews amongst the Francophone-Québec press and which has drawn comparisons with Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android.” To these ears the song – a powerful tale of a fiery maelstrom engulfing the city and it’s inhabitants – offers hints of both Forêt and the much missed Hôtel Morphée. It’s a really atmospheric track that bristles with an undercurrent of menace and offer a noticeable change of pace and depth, suggesting that Lisbonne Télégramme have much more to offer.

Le Volume Courbe


How to get the attention of this blog? Pepper your bio with phrases like these: “Serge Gainsbourg was her mother’s favourite artist, so the first record Charlotte was given was his “Love On The Beat” (“full of orgasms – what was she thinking?”), before the more artful designs of David Bowie, The Velvet Underground and The Stooges captured her blossoming imagination. The first song she ever wrote survived to become the title track on her first personal salvo.”

It does not mean the attention of this blog is immediate: Charlotte Marionneau (the Charlotte mentioned above) is making records since the end of the 90s, the debut album of her ‘band’ Le Volume Courbe was released in 2005. She worked with Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, yet this is the first time she’s featured on FS. Ahem. Better late then never, eh?

Credit to DJ St. Paul for turning me to Charlotte/Le Volume Courbe. The House is a catchy single, with Charlotte’s breathy vocals sitting pretty on a driving indie-guitar groove, with added strings. Broadcast is an obvious reference. Every now and then, Marionneau sings in French, also on the cool, slow b-side of this single. Alas, no full orgasms here.

Laurine

  • Posted on 12/04/2015
  • /Under Musique

LaurineLaurine Pilarski hails from Lille and when she’s not too busy writing screen plays and scripts for the court-métrage “Craquer pour elle” she’s writing, composing and singing delightfully intimate folk-tinged pop-songs in both French and English.

With an EP promised ‘when it’s ready’, she’s released a handful of tracks on Bandcamp that highlight not only her honey-dripped vocals, but also her multi-lingual song-writing and composition skills. All these songs are incredibly soothing, wistful and intimate. Perhaps this is what her bio means when it suggests that …her sorrows, they’re yours. Her songs, they’re talking about you…? The sweetness of her voice on these tracks is perfectly matched by Romain Parmentier’s acoustic guitar. There’s an overwhelming tranquillity to her sound that is just perfect for walking solitary on a deserted beach as the waves gently crash ashore.

Laurine lists amongst her musical influences Emilie Simon – with whom she sounds at times uncannily similar – and interestingly the tormented geniuses that were Nick Drake and the American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, which is discernible on the totally beguiling “Just friends”, performed in her whispering English.

But it’s the achingly beautiful “La fille à l’arrière des berlines” that first grabbed my attention, and as we tend to like ‘les filles qui chantent en français’ here, this is the track that I’ve selected for your listening pleasure…

Jacques Dutronc

Maybe somebody noticed that Jacques Dutronc was missing from the big wave of tribute albums that crashes French coastlines almost every year. Maybe the 72nd birthday is something of an occassion in Franca. Maybe Jacques isn’t doing well. Maybe somebody thought, what the heck, why not have a string of big French names record a JD-cover? Whatever the reason was, April 28th marked the 72nd birthday of Dutronc, and the release of Bon anniversaire M’sieur Dutronc (Spotify link). Artists like Zaz, Miossec, Brigitte (great version of ‘Opium’, the duet JD recorded with Bambou), Camelia Jordana and JD’s son Thomas all recorded covers. Below, you can watch Zaz sing ‘Il est 5 heures’.

Hollydays

Ready to jump into Elli & Jacno-territory again? Hollydays is a French duo (Elise and Sébastien) who made a little name for themselves with a cover of Niagara’s classic L’Amour a la plage (watch), an acoustic version that got a fairly nice remix (this one) and who debuted last year with an EP with 80s referring synthipop (here). They keep up that reference on their new 3-track EP, featuring this track (video):

Now playing: Circé Deslandes

  • Posted on 23/03/2015
  • /Under Musique

Circé Deslandes first album is out now on Spotify (partly on Bandcamp), with lustful tracks, chok full of double entendres, innuendo and pure sex music like this track:

See also this video:

French Disco Boogie Sounds

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We’ve been boogie-ing down on this blog every NOW and THEN, but never to the sounds presented on this compilation, out end of this month. Rare titles by artists from either the (French) Carribean or Canada, this glitters like sequined hot pants. ‘Superstar’ by Canadian band (?) Contessa intrigues me the most – the song’s credited to one Geraldine Hunt, who made a few discofied albums herself, but certainly isn’t singing this track. Anybody has more info?
UPDATE:
The Plot Thickens. Superstar is a French version of the song ‘Star struck’ by Cheri, with Geraldine Hunt singing (and writing). Thanks Aux!

Contessa – Super Star 1983 sur WAT.tv sélectionnée dans Musique

Ariane Moffatt – 22h22

  • Posted on 15/03/2015
  • /Under Musique

0004551989_10‘No guitars, just plastic’, that was the motto for making 22h22, Ariane Moffatt‘s fifth album. The Canadian songstress even taped an ‘X’ on one of the guitars hanging on the studio wall. No strings, just buttons and keys then. And a contribution by ‘Henri and Marcel Marcil-Moffatt’, the twin boys Ariane had in 2013 and who became subject of this record. The title is a reference to the moment when, kids in bed, all work done, inspiration hits. From THIS interview: “Everything would come back to me at 10:22,” she recalled. “My life was so practical at that point, but at that time, I felt like it was the only opportunity I had to fly, to see what’s on the other side. It was reassuring to feel that again, because I was in provider mode and survival mode and taking care of babies and not thinking about anything else.”
‘The other side’, as Moffatt calls it, is a dream-like state, where plushy 70s-synths (Jean-Michel Jarre sometimes springs to mind) take over and the mood is reflective and introspective. Take ‘Retourner en moi’ for istance. On the other hand, there are more upbeat tracks like single ‘Debout’ and what to me is the highlight of this album, ‘Les tireurs fou’ – the latter is a song about trying to shield your kids from all the dangers and annoyances in this world. Brazilian percussion turns up in ‘De mort à vivant’ (a song about reincarnation), the twins lend their voices for ‘Matelos & frères’.
When Ariane leans less on the trickery (a choir of her fans in ‘Toute sa vie’, the baby voices, the bended voice in ‘Nostalgie des jours qui tombent’) and relies more on her songwriting, 22h22 lights up. ‘Retourner en moi’ is a great song, as is ‘Les tireurs fous’. B
eing a mom and an artist, it’s a struggle. That’s what 22h22 proves. It’s nice to drift off to ‘the other side’ every now and then. But it takes a lot more than some ‘hour of inspiration’ to get to a really great album.

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