Year lists (1)

  • Posted on 11/12/2012
  • /Under Musique

Fanny Bloom1. Fanny Bloom – Apprentie Guerrière
With this superb debut solo-album, Fanny Grosjean left the sometimes somewhat naïve songs of La Patère Rose far behind. Apprentie Guerrière is mature and diverse and never fails. Bloom shows with this album that she grew in all facets of her writing and luckily still has her delightful, hoarse voice on top of it.
Listen to ‘Mon Hiver‘ and feel everything a song needs. In only 1:40 minutes that is, simply brilliant.

2. Françoiz Breut – La Chirurgie Des Sentiments
Never a dull moment with Françoiz. With ‘La Chirurgie Des Sentiments’ she managed to surprise again within her very own and very special universe. And wherever she will take you in that weird universe, being with Françoiz somehow never feels uncomfortable. In contrary.

3. Celine Mastrorelli – Elle Était Une Fois
It took beauty of the year Celine Mastrorelli quite a while to come up with a full album. But it was worth the wait. Celine does it the way we like it most at FS. Check ‘Lost in Paris’ and you’ll understand why.

4. Mélanie Pain – Bye Bye Manchester
Too bad she did only half of the tracks on this album in French. In spite of that she easily made it into this years top 5 with her ukulele and Casio. Original songs, seductive singing, all the ingredients we already know from Nouvelle Vague, but she can do it on her own very well.

5. Mademoiselle Nineteen – idem
Fresh, quirky, contemporary and poppy, exactly what you might expect with a name like ‘Mademoiselle Nineteen’. Nevertheless reminiscents of earlier days (Lio! France Gall!) are never far away and in this case that’s a good thing. The Lolita-esque Belgian singer recorded the most cheerful album of the year without getting obligatory.

Wishing you all the best for the next year!
Maks

Brigitte covers Gainsbourg

  • Posted on 03/12/2012
  • /Under Musique

Kooky pop duo Brigitte (Aurelie & Sylvie) released an extended version of their quirky debut, Et Vous Tu M’Aimes?. It features a bonus disc with leftovers and covers, songs by RUN DMC (Walk this way), George Michael (I Want Your Sex) and yes, our beloved Serge. Brigitte’s take on Chez les Ye-Ye is danceable, well-arranged and one of the better cover versions, I’d say.

Brigitte – Chez les ye-ye (video of Serge’s original here)

Send Us Your Year List!

Marie-Pierre Arthur? Françoiz Breut? Fanny Bloom? Pauline Croze? Amylie? Berry? How ’bout Benjamin Biolay, Matthieu Boogaerts, Cali, Johnny Hallyday, BB Brunes? Just WHO made the bestest French album of the year? And WHY?
FransS, Sky, Maks and me are making a list, we’re checking it twice. But you, dear FS-fan, you can add your list of faves as well. Albums, songs, singers, there are no rules. Make a proper year list, add a little comment to every entry, and send in the result to guuzbourg (a) gmail (dot) com, before December 10. More = merry and bright.

Sophie Vaillancourt

Another guestpost by David! Woo!

After disappearing for a few years since reaching the finals of Star Académie in 2009, Sophie Vaillancourt has her first album, “Histoires de filles et de garçons”. Sophie opted not to take the risk of pursuing a full time career in music right away, completing her degree in elementary school education from the University of Montreal, earning the money to put herself through school by modeling. She looks nothing at all like any of my grade school teachers.

For her album, Sophie wrote half the songs herself, poppy songs with bright melodies and a tinge of melancholy to the lyrics, exhibiting a clear ’60’s influence (think Simon and Garfunkel). She worked with David Brunet, a name some might recognize from his work with Coeur de Pirate or Tricot Machine. There’s a nice article that discusses how this came to be here. My favorite song from the CD, “Danser Sous La Pluie”, leads off.
For fun, here is a snippet of another favorite, “Alors J’irai”, sung by Sophie with her class. I can’t find any videos for her album, other than this promo, but the camera loves her, so it’s highly likely her label will make it happen eventually.

P.S.: It’s been a pretty good year for filles fragiles – here’s a video from Brigitte Saint-Aubin’s new album, “Glamour”.

Sophie Vaillancourt – Pour lui plaire
Sophie Vaillancourt – Les sentiers regrettés

Marianne Dissard

  • Posted on 26/11/2012
  • /Under Musique

We live in interesting times, people. Times where elegant country-noir singers like Marianne Dissard, she of the brilliant L’Entredeux, she who rubs shouders with the Calexico’s and members of Willie Nelson’s band, can’t get a record label to release her new album The Cat. Not Me. If you hear L’Oiseau, you wonder why. Surely, this soundtrack for Paris, Texas, if it had been shot in the Camargue, is sultry and brutal – just like Marianne herself. So enjoy this track. Not sure when we can hear the rest. If you’re new to Marianne and her music, go here.

Marianne Dissard – Oiseau

Wendy Nazaré

  • Posted on 22/11/2012
  • /Under Musique

David’s spoiling us with another guestpost, on exotic beauty Wendy Nazaré.

I don’t know if others are the same way, but it is rare that I can listen to a new CD all the way through without getting bored at some point. Usually, the music begins to sound somewhat the same, and I find it’s better to come back to it. So, when I listened to Wendy Nazare’s “A tire d’ailes” straight through twice, I was very pleasantly surprised. (This happened to me earlier this year with Porcelaine’s new album, see the post on Filles Sourires here. While I’m thinking about it, there are some excellent videos from Porcelaine’s concert at Francofolies here, here and (my favorite) here.)

Back to Wendy. Her family comes originally from Algeria, reaching Belgium by way of Portugal and England, per her Myspace site. There are traces of all these places in her music. The instrumentals stand out: clean, varied and complex. Wendy’s voice ranges from soft and clouded to ringing clear and full, a sound like some recent artists out of Quebec, such as Chloe LaCasse, Marie-Pierre Arthur or Ingrid St-Pierre (Ingrid’s got a new album out, by the bye, “L’Escapade”). It may not be coincidence that her first record contract was with a record company out of Quebec. “Nairobi River” is a fair example, with a video here. There are other videos, each tending to remind me of Wendy’s Myspace description of how she sang at family gatherings as a little girl – the videos are happy and somewhat chaste, as if she were still singing with Mom, Dad and the family watching. “Au gout eighties” video is another example, or a duet with Pep’s, “Lisboa”. Her music lifts, filles fragile.

While Wendy’s first album from four years ago is not quite on the same level, it showed promise, with songs such as “Amabi”, or “Y’a une bombe”. I’ve attached a couple favorites from “A tires d’ailes”.

Wendy Nazaré – Juliana
Wendy Nazaré – Galway

Biolay covers Blur

  • Posted on 21/11/2012
  • /Under Musique

Not too sure what to think of Ben’s recent lust for taking the English road. Here, he covers Out of Time by Blur for radio station Le Mouv’

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