A New Canadian sensation, no less. Hotel Morphée, lead by sirene/violinist Laurence Nerbonne, makes arty rock (think Karkwa, think dEUS, think La Patère Rose) that stirs a lot of black and white gothic images, nouvelle vague scènes, long dark hair blown by the wind, that kind of stuff. It’s music that makes you want to wear a black turtleneck or suit up. David Lynch must be an influence. To get the picture(s) watch this bloody video. Histoires des fantomes is HM’s first album, on Bandcamp you can check their first, and also very fine, EP.

Hotel Morphée – Garde à vous

We’ve heard a lot of tracks with Serge & Jane’s Je t’aime-samples, but I bet you never heard it like this:

Fremaux & Associes released the second volume (see here for volume 1) of early Gainsbourg tracks plus the bands and artists who either covered his songs, or played his compostions. 58 tracks, 3 cd’s. This includes Serge’s flawless ‘No.4’ EP (featuring Black Trombone, Intoxicated man, Requiem pour un twisteur), several radio performances and songs sung by J-C Pascal, Petula Clark and fresh-faced vocal groups like Les Riff and Les Scarlet. The latter aren’t essential, yet it’s very handy to have them together on one box. I’d never heard of Los Jorge Nova Bossa’s version of Los Cigarillos (an instrumental track) and I think the live-version by Les Frères Jacques of Le poinçonneur is kind of special. But the best, and for me least known track, is Juliette Gréco’s beautiful version of Valse de l’au-revoir.

Juliette Gréco – Valse de l’au-revoir