Lizzy & the Orca

  • Posted on 11/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

And the flow of great artists from Montréal/Québec keeps on flowing. Lizzy & the Orca are fronted by Lysanne Picard, who has a pretty doodle-blog as well, who plays ukelele, guitar and cello. Partner in crime is Sébastien Ménard (glockenspiel, electric guitar). They play folk-tinged pop, with some country added. I really dig that steel guitar in Le Manteau Rouge. Their new EP is released, you can check their songs in French and English here. See Lysanne play an acoustic version here.

Lizzy & the Orca – Le manteau rouge

EllesOnParis

  • Posted on 10/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

The idea looks so simple: ask a bunch of songwriters to compose a song about every Parisian arrondissement, then have famous actresses, singers and filles sourires favourites sing those songs. A female ode to the eternal city… I wish I came up with the idea, but alas, it was Nicolas Boualami Gaubiac who deserves all credit.

The result is a project called “ElleSonParis”. And the result is as exciting as it sounds

The songwriters are big names like Alex Beaupain, Thomas Roussel, Philippe Bresson, La Grande Sophie and Alain Chamfort. And what about the line-up! We have Juliette Gréco (!), Jane Birkin (!) Charlotte Rampling and Hanna Schygulla on one side and Zaza Fournier, Adrienne Pauly, Agnès Jaoui, Elisa Tovati, Irène Jacob and more on the other.

“ElleSonParis” is a musical tour through the arrondissements of Paris. They pay tribute to the Paris’ neighborhoods, all with their different character and own history.
Some of the songs are a bit so-so (one is not better than the high school musical level, but I won’t tell your which one…), but in general it is very nice trip into the City of Light.

Jane Birkin sings a song for the 16th arrondissement. A sober song with some with piano (or is it a  harpsichord?) called “5, Avenue Marceau”. Just in case you wonder: that was the home address of.. Yves Saint Laurent. And Chez Régine? We’ve all been there, no?

Jane Birkin – 5, Avenue Marceau
Adrienne Pauly – Chez Régine

Hot for Teacher

  • Posted on 09/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

If you’re a teacher of French living in Germany, this is your chance to grab a free copy of an excellent compilation here. FrancoMusiques 2012/13 is the sixth collaboration between the Institut Francais/ French Embassy in Berlin, the Bureau Export and German schoolbook publishers Cornelsen, and another well-done one, mirroring the spectrum of modern French pop in a quite remarkable way, featuring chanson, francophone reggae, hiphop, folk, manouche jazz even. Most artists and songs have been already featured at FS, with a few exceptions, among them rap aficionados 1995 who beam you right back to that smooth old school flow of the best parties, and Breton musician Matthieu Aschehoug, front man of his band Askehoug – think Serge doing a Bertrand Cantat song with Jon Lord and Ian Anderson, and you’re halfway on the right track. Askehoug are playing Le Sentier des Halles, 50 rue d’Aboukir, 75002 Paris tomorrow, Oct 10. Don’t miss that guy.

1995 – La Suite
Askehoug – Meuf et Mec

Mustang vs Gainsbourg

French neo-rockabilly trio recorded an EP with reprises of old tunes, songs by Brassens, Don Cavalli, Patrick Coutin and yes, our Serge. Most of the time, these cover-EPs consist of throwaway versions, recorded just for fun, material to keep the fans happy. Mustang Reprend is just that – the arrangement of Brassens’ Je me suis fait tout petit is fine, Coutin’s J’aime regarder les filles doesn’t have the bite of the original and Chez les Yé-Yé does swing ferociously, but lacks the contempt of Gainsbourg, your honour. Still, I’ve heard worse.

Mustang – Chez les yé-yé
Video of Serge’s original HERE

Bâtard Pop XXIII: Serge NTM

  • Posted on 01/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

I’m aware it’s kind of a sacrilege here, but I always thought that Serge’s Je suis venu te dire is a fat bummer of a song. Now mash-up entrepreneur Tom Haggen – featured at FS already here – has provided the rough edge the tune always lacked, fusing Serge’s goodbye ditty with the vocals of 1995’s Come Again by Saint-Denis-based hip hoppers Suprême NTM, the abbreviation standing for Nique ta mère, French slang for a not too well-mannered MILF fornication. Haggen’s amalgam has class and style, and his blogsite is well worth checking out, including a wow blend of disco legends KC & The Sunshine Band and L.A. rapper Ke$ha. Video here, mp3 below, and shake yours as well.

Tom Haggen – Je suis venu te dire que je reviens
Tom Haggen – Shake Shake Shake!

Floating with Françoiz

  • Posted on 30/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

Our gamine lady of French indie pop: That’s Françoiz Breut, kind of a brooding indie folk figurehead of the Nouvelle Scène Française and with Si tu disais actually famous in France for a few hours in the mid-90s. Fifteen years later, Françoiz has come of age, and La Chirurgie des Sentiments may be her most consistent album yet. While opening with BXL Bleuette, an hommage to her adopted hometown Bruxelles, Chirurgie’s soundscapes, oscillating between airy mournfulness and serene mirth, chanson, post-new wave and splinters of electropop, actually lead directly to the vastness of the firmament. L’astronome reminds distantly of Clare and The Reasons’ dreamy Pluton, and the sweeping Cabinet des Curiosités beams the sound of Bahia right up to the asteroid belt, combining Gallic-Brazilian weightlessness, space age pop and easy listening scope to a clandestine super hit. With Chirurgie, Françoiz has arrived, though not à Bruxelles. Finally she’s at one with the universe.

Françoiz Breut – Cabinet des Curiosités

Rose

  • Posted on 30/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

Keren Meloul, who looks like an Oriental half-sister of Carla Bruni, took her stage name from the 1979 movie The Rose, based on the tragic life of Janis Joplin. Unlike Janis, or Bette Midler who plays The Rose, Keren has a soft, hoarse voice that channels early spring, meadows with glistening dewdrops. But there’s a melancholy undertone, like you see the autumn leaves already between the blossomming trees. She made two albums, a third one’s about to be released and Et Puis Juin is the first single. Spring colours and autumn leaves all rolled in to one. See a live clip here.

Rose – Et puis juin

Melody’s Echo Chamber

Her name’s Melody. Melody Prochet. She plays music as Melody’s Echo Chamber, ‘a kaleidoscopic fusion of psych rock and warm hypnotic pop‘. Or ‘Jane Birkin backed by Best Coast’, if you like. It’s fuzzy, distorted, colourful, danceable, supersweet and very, very husky. Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker produced MEC’s debut album, she herself played all instruments and (as far as I know) wrote all the songs. Melody looks a bit like Gigi Gaston, the mysterious yeye-girl from artist Josh Goshfield’s dreamworld. Melody sings in English and French, I like the very Cocteau Twins-y Bisou Magique very, very much. Pitchfork, New York Times and COS wrote very favourable reviews. See the video for I Follow You here.

Melody’s Echo Chamber – Bisou Magique

Bump Miss Susie

  • Posted on 28/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

After having been hadened, jonesed and kralled, there’s not all-too much left of jazz but a stiff with lots of funeral makeup. But actually, a few artists are still alive, though they’re hard to find: Meet Susie Arioli from Montréal, Quebec, who already celebrated the Great American Songbook with her Pennies From Heaven debut in 2002. Jazz reviews tell the usual nonsense of mellow moods and emotive atmospheres; truth is that Miss Susie has a highly seductive timbre, and with collaborator Jordan Officer one of the sharpest swing guitarists and arrangers around. Her new album All the Way features a gorgeous French-language version of the all-time classic What a Difference a Day Makes. Let’s make it short: Few did it better.

Susie Arioli – Un Jour de Différence

Bonus: Tchavolo Schmitt’s stunning manouche version of Différence, originally written by Mexican songstress María Méndez Grever in 1934.

Tchavolo Schmitt – Un Jour de Différence

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