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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.

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.

New Coeur de Pirate video

  • Posted on 06/04/2015
  • /Under Video

CdP recorded the song also in English, listen below

See her perform the song (and some old faves) on Canadian The Voice (La Voix) HERE

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):

Juliette Gréco

  • Posted on 01/04/2015
  • /Under Video

Mark Sullivan offers an April surprise

To welcome in Spring, here is Juliette Gréco in a wonderful performance of Gainsbourg’s ‘La Javanaise’ live on TV in 1991, with Gérard Jouannest at the piano – new on Youtube.

While we wait for the new albums expected in 2015 from Coeur de Pirate, La Grande Sophie and Barbara Carlotti – and CdP’s is not far away now – will any of them be performing their classics at the age of 64, let alone at 86, as here in 2013 at Ramatuelle?

And here is Juliette in her heyday almost 50 years ago, in 1966
with parts of ‘Jolie Môme’ and ‘Un petit poisson, un petit oiseau’ either side of an atmospheric interview, with a glimpse of Georges Brassens. (Though posted by the British Pathe News archive, it is all in French.)

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