Musique

Les Bien-aimés

  • Posted on 10/08/2011
  • /Under Musique

Les Bien-Aimés (The Beloved)  is a new film written and directed by Christophe Honoré. A mouthwatering cast for Filles Sourires Fans: Ludivine Sagnier, Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni. The story is set in the 1960s and 1990s in Paris, Prague and London. You can see the trailer here and along interview with the three (en français) here. In an earlier film “Les chanson d’amour” (2007), Honoré already worked with Ludivine and Chiara. That resulted in a wonderful album, witten and composed by Alex Beaupain. This time they team up together again, and again the result is worth it. To put it short: what a lovely album! All the ladies have their own songs, they sing duets (with each other and with other actors). There is one mother/daughter duet and a song by all three. Because it is so hard to choose, two songs. The ladies all together in “Tout est si Calme” and a very nice duo from Ludivine with Rasha Bukvic, “Les Chiens Ne Font Pas Des Chats”

Sagnier, Mastroianni, Deneuve & Clara Couste – Tout Est Si Calme
Ludivine Sagnier & Rasha Bukvic – Les Chiens Ne Font Pas Des Chats

Serge at the Hollywood Bowl

On August 28, to be exact. At the KCRW’s World Festival. A programme and a line-up that makes me want to go there…I can’t but if you can you should! There will be a lot of Serge songs and the legendary album “Histoire de Melody Nelson“ will be performed in full with orchestra and guests. Director will be Jean Claude Vannier himself, French composer, arranger and longtime Gainsbourg collaborator. Among the guests some artists “have” something with Serge like Beck (who produced Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “IRM” album) and of course Lulu Gainsbourg. The others are pleasant surprises to me: Ed Droste (Grizzly Bear), Victoria Legrand (Beach House), Sean Lennon & Charlotte Kemp Muhl (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger), Mike Patton (Faith No More) and Nika Roza Danilova (Zola Jesus). Good to see that apparently Serge still inspires a new generation of artists…
The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger made a cover of  “Comic Strip“!

Melissa NKonda

  • Posted on 07/08/2011
  • /Under Musique

We already noticed the fact that the French talent shows bring us more talent than for example here in the Netherlands. Melissa Nkonda was in “Nouvelle Star” and released her first album earlier this year, called “Nouveaux Horizons”. It is a soulful album, with R&B influences. Most songs are in French (bien sur) but some in English. Sometimes Melissa  remind me of Zaz, or Camelia Jordana like the French/English duet with VV Brown “J’ai Fait Tout Ca Pour Vous”. We bring you the bluesy, soulful “Pas Cette Nuit”.

Melissa NKonda – Pas Cette Nuit

 

 

Mitsou

Canadian 90s sex-symbol Mitsou (best known for this, and this) released a new single, On vole. Her style nowadays, you could say, is Lady Gaga meets Yelle, with some Mylene Farmer thrown in. That stewardess-outfit in the video works for me too. You can download the single for free on Mitsou’s Soundcloud page, HERE.

Note: not everybody is impressed by Mitsou’s return…

Lulu Gainsbourg

  • Posted on 27/07/2011
  • /Under Musique

Serge’s youngest son and pianist Lulu released an EP with jazz-reworks of his dad’s songs. Featuring Richard Bona (vocals), Angelo Debarre (guitar, he plays in the Vie Heroique-movie too), Terri Lyne Carrington (drums), Gil Goldstein (accordion), James Genus (bass) and Stan Harrison (sax, he played on Serge’s You’re Under Arrest-album). Most of these players studied or teach at Boston’s Berklee College. Lulu’s a student there. It’s an impressive album, with impressive guests. Really dig the manouche-version of Le poinçonneur des Lilas and the La Javanaise-version with Bona. But we have to wait for the really good stuff:  for his album with songs by Serge, Lulu invited Scarlett Johansson, Vanessa Paradis & Johnny Depp (who will sing La ballade de Melody Nelson), Iggy Pop, Sean Lennon, Rufus Wainwright and Marianne Faithfull. Whoa. Charlotte, Bambou and Jane do not contribute, Lulu said didn’t want to include family on his album.
The Gainsbourg name sure can get you in touch with big names, Charlotte can testify to that. But Charlotte’s really talented too, as her movies and her most recent albums prove. Lulu is a fine pianist, he was a musical director for a Gainsbourg-tribute in Israel and he composed songs for Marc Lavoine. He considers his album a gift to his dad, whom he lost at 5. There’s no shame in honouring your dad, and trying to make a name for yourself via his beautiful songs, I think. Really looking forward to the album.
See Lulu play live here. See Serge and Lulu here.

Lulu Gainsbourg & Richard Bona – La javanaise

Tributes Continue

  • Posted on 27/07/2011
  • /Under Musique

It’s de rigueur nowadays: You are not an artist if there’s no tribute album made for you. In recent months we saw a Jacno tribute, a Boby Lapointe tribute and a tribute to Bashung. And now there is a Maxim Le Forestier tribute album, called “La Maison Bleue”. Le Forestier never gained popularity outside France (as far as I know), but in France he is respected for his chansons for almost 40 years. In 1971 he spent some time in the hippie scene of San Francisco, writing a song about it with the same name, but everyone knows it as “La Maison Bleue“. So that explains the title of this tribute, with only tracks of Le Forestier’s debut album from 1972, “Mon Frère”.
It includes reprises by Salvatore Adamo and Calogero, Filles Sourires-fans should rejoice over contributions by Daphné and Emily Loizeau. But for the Filles Sourires I choose a song by our beloved La Fiancée.

La Fiancée – La Rouille
Maxime Le Forestier – La Rouille

Thomas Dutronc

  • Posted on 19/07/2011
  • /Under Musique

The son of Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc released a very good new single today, Demain. It’s the first track from the upcoming new album (out in October), the follow up to the highly succesful Comme un manouche sans guitare. The Django-vibe’s still there, but he makes it completely his own.

Thomas Dutronc – Demain

Elsa Kopf

  • Posted on 19/07/2011
  • /Under Musique

Her dad’s a language professor. Her mom is a ‘parolière’ for Zazie and Calogero. No wonder beautiful blonde Elsa Kopf sings in different languages. On her debut album, two songs are in French. One earned her ‘prix Delanoë’, the other is even better. The picture on the left is stolen from this photostream on Flickr, that features a lot more great pics of Elsa. If her pics and this song make you want to put on extremely soft sweaters and roll around in a padded room with fluffy towels and pink wallpaper – you know exactly what I’ve done the last few days. Sweet, innocent, sexy, superlovely, it’s all that.

Elsa Kopf – Larmes de caramel

Shahar Even Tzur

  • Posted on 18/07/2011
  • /Under Musique

Gainsbourg sung in Hebrew – the tribute album by Israeli popstar Shahar Even Tzur isn’t the first time Serge’s songs are sung in that language, but it still is remarkable. There was a tribute to SG in Israel last year (see here), I don’t think Even Tzur was part of that one. And on Youtube I found this. And this. Shahar translated 10 songs to Hebrew, ranging from Sorry Angel to several Melody Nelson tracks, and gave ‘m a rocking make-over.  Sometimes it works,  sometimes it doesn’t.Chez les ye-yes, with it’s klezmer-references, works best.

As you know, Gainsbourg’s real name is Lucien Ginzburg, his parents were Russian jews. Serge taught children of concentration camp survivors (there’s a very moving scene in the Vie Heroique movie about this), wrote a pro-Israel track in 1967, at the start of the 6 Day War. There’s of course the Rock Around the Bunker-album, a concept-album about Nazi occupation. But judaism or overt jewish references were never a big part of Gainsbourgs work. To be honest, I only found out Serge was a jew when John Zorn released his tribute-album in 1997. My guess is that the Israeli-tributes have little to do with judaism, but more with the quality of Serge’s songs. Sung in Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Dutch or Hebrew, they’re still brilliant.

I’ve been trying to find more info about the Serge-tribute by Shahar, but I don’t read Hebrew and there’s a lot of articles to be found anyway. If you know more, please leave a comment.

Shahar Even Tzur – Chez les ye-yes
See Shahar play Serge covers live here and here. Listen to the full album on Spotify.

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