Musique

Zaza Fournier

  • Posted on 23/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

Zaza Fournier loves Roy Orbison and Elvis, plays the accordeon and makes doowop-infused retro-pop. And dresses the part – think John Waters’ Cry-Baby movie. Her real first name is Camille, she hails from Paris, she’s 26 years old and her voice is husky and pouty. Her second album just dropped, with a less accordeon, more organs and heartfelt ballads like Les Mariés, the dramatic Maman and the excellent single Vodka Fraise (clip). Johnny Chéri is an exciting pairing of twang, doowop and lust.

Zaza Fournier – Johnny Chéri

Transvision Vamp

  • Posted on 23/06/2011
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Using Serge & Jane’s Je t’aime… moi non plus as a backdrop for your own song – Scottish rockers Texas did it (for Guitar song, see here) but until last week I wasn’t aware Transvision Vamp did it too, and ten years earlier. Who or what a ‘twangy wigout’  exactly is, I dont know. I guess that’s not the point of the song, that focusses on singer Wendy James adding as much air to her breathy vocals as possible. Which is nice. The song is on the third and last TV-album ‘Little Magnets versus The Bubble of Babble’ (1991), not a huge success (euphemism alert). They broke up almost right after the release. I saw Wendy and the band live once, a hard rocking show with James as the very blonde eyecatcher. Who sang really well, as I remember. She’s still active as a singer, as this MySpace shows. And still making that glammed up poprock, very able to sex up things with her lolita-voice. But I don’t hear songs as catchy as this one. Or this one.

Transvision Vamp – Twangy Wigout

Parfait Été (part deux)

A new summer, a new compilation, a new violation against the vocabulaire (yes, it’s L’été parfait, I know, but this is part of the Perfect …-series, so there). French tunes, by French artists, by a Canadian rockband, by a Flemish girl, by a singer with roots in Cameroon and Algeria backed up by a Brit soul singer – all pretty recent, very versatile indeed. Grab the zip HERE (where it says ‘hier de download’) or try on Spotify HERE.

Artwork as always by the brilliant Wilbert ‘Mr Perfect’ Leering.

Lise

  • Posted on 22/06/2011
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Playing the piano since the age of 5, worshipping Haendel and Chopin and finally covering The Pixies and 50 Cent: Meet Lise. The young singer/player just released an album (posted a track from her EP earlier) that was recorded in America and features a few English songs. The atmosphere, the emphasis on the piano, her breathy voice and her Franglais makes it easy to compare her to Emilie Simon – Lise takes that as a compliment. Well, we all know what happened to Simon (ahem), and though the English songs sound kooky in a cool way, I wouldn’ recommend Lise to pursue an carreer in English. I mean, take the brilliant duet with Dionysos-singer Mathias Malzieu – that’s imaginative stuff, clever writing and a catchy tune. Go French or go home!

Lise & Mathias Malzieu – La Ballerine St Le Magicien

L’Amour à la plage

  • Posted on 19/06/2011
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Niagara’s L’amour à la plage is one of my favourite French 80s songs, and probably one of the best French summersongs ever recorded. It’s sung by wet-dream-come-true Muriel Moreno, and sold over 200K copies when it came out in 1985. Belgian trio Mon Réal just released a great cover of the track, one that will appear on their upcoming album. L’amour à la plage was covered earlier, by punkrockband Ludwig von 88 (by far the loudest version), by actress Virginie Ledoyen (by far the sweetest version) and by Toma & Api (by far the huskiest version). Take your pick!

Niagara – L’amour à la plage
Virginie Ledoyen – L’amour à la plage (link=fixed)
Ludwig von 88 – L’amour à la plage
Toma & api – L’amour à la plage
Mon Real – L’amour à la plage

Fusée Dorée

  • Posted on 19/06/2011
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Guestpost! Natasha on Emmanuelle, aka Fusée Dorée:

After a good one woman performance on 17 June 2011 in Amsterdam for the quarter final in the singer-songwriter category of the Grote Prijs van Nederland, a Dutch music award, Emmanuelle Ornon aka Fusée Dorée, French but living in Amsterdam, is putting out her first two singles “Un rendez-vous/ La carte” on Amsterdam-Detroit based label, Cherry Juice Recordings. Says Ornon: “A couple of years ago, I was playing around with my loop machine, putting music to French poems for a performance at the French Institute in Amsterdam. And it felt good, experimenting with vocals and minimal guitars and beats. So I haven’t stop playing, and songs have popped up and grown, and now there’s a whole family of them.”

Fusée writes her own lyrics in both French and English and works with other musicians such as Mario Ramirez, a fellow musician from band Children SuMadre who played bass on a few songs, while Ian Holchaker and Max Koedijk cooked up some additional beats. Her voice has just been featured on CRJ’s digital release “Quelle importance”, performed by Japanese house artist and DJ Motomitsu.

Speaking of which, not only will Motomitsu be in town on Saturday 25 June to be part of the live performance of Fusée Dorée at De Nieuwe Anita in Amsterdam (hint: her new single is seriously electro and trip hop), Oh La La’s Natashka has rounded up DJ Laurent Chambon and DJs Cowboy & Henk for an evening of high energy French music inspired by Fusée Dorée called GOLD.

Fusée Dorée – Twinkle
Fusée Dorée – Mes amants

Benjamin Biolay

  • Posted on 18/06/2011
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Benjamin Biolay acted before, in this film for instance, now he’s the leading men in Pourqoui tu pleures. Directed en written by Katia Lewkowicz, it’s a film about a groom getting cold feet. I haven’t seen the movie, but from what I read so far, I think this Variety-review hits the nail on the head: ‘a name cast indulging in plenty of French-style rude behavior, this not-particularly-amusing comedy of (bad) manners centered on a group of unsympathetic characters seems destined for niche domestic audiences, and is unlikely to translate in non-French lingo countries’. Biolay wrote an  album with songs used in the film, and inspired by the screenplay. It features a duet with co-star Emmanuelle Devos, and solo’s by other stars Sarah Adler and Anna Zimmer. This album comes hot on the heels of BB’s masterpiece La Superbe, in comparison this soundtrack isn’t as strong (no surprise there). There are a few solid songs, like the Barry White-styled Le Bonheur, Mon Cul and the Devos-duet. Music-wise not a highpoint in BBs career.

Benjamin Biolay & Emmanuelle Devos – Pourqoui tu pleures

Hanna

  • Posted on 16/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

Best Lio-ripoff I heard in months, is Anti-Moi by Hanna. Her EP was released via MyMajorCompany, the crowdfunded label and home of Joyce Jonathan and Gregoire. Anti-moi isn’t the single, that’s Et si (clip). The EP has some promising moments, but is way to fluffy to really make a lasting impression.

Hanna – Anti-moi

No Strings Attached

  • Posted on 04/06/2011
  • /Under Musique

„G-strings are not required in Quebec“, Margaret Dragu and A.S.A. Harrison write in their knowledgeable Revelations: Essays on Striptease and Sexuality. „In 1979 over a hundred strippers were charged with nudity for removing their G-strings, but the attorney general did not sign the orders.“ Among those exotic dancers well may have been Montreal’s one and only Rina Berti, „the singing stripper who is still talked about in Miami Beach and farther“, though her website doesn’t reveal any information about her former avocation. Sadly, the website also doesn’t tell about her musical outings, among them the French-Canadian cover of the Bee Gees’ 1977 club smasher Stayin’ Alive and a red-hot menopausal disco version of Light My Fire, both proving all-too-well that there are few differences between pop and burlesque shows, surely related art forms traditionally announced in the same mode: Bonsoir tout le monde, ce soir chez FS je vous veux presenter la belle Rina!

Rina Berti – Viens dans mes rêves
Rina Berti – Light My Fire

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