Renske Taminiau

  • Posted on 10/09/2011
  • /Under Musique

Dutch doll Renske Taminiau surprised the world a few years back by a) deciding that she didn’t want to be a doctor and b) making a wonderful debut album. Waiting to be told was the equivalent of drinking tea from a porcelain cup, sitting on a plush chair in a cosy, almost prissy room with lots of pink flowers. Music-wise, she related to Kurt Elling and Feist. Renske sings like she’s just been skinny dipping in cristal clear water – and she still sounds like that on her new album Move Me. On which she sings in French. A melancholic ode to Paris, with help from accordion and strings. I’d love to walk through Montparnasse with this on repeat on my iPod.

Here are two versions of ‘Paris’, the second one she recorded earlier and is a demo-version. No accordion, but still very beautiful.

Renske Taminiau – Paris
Renske Taminiau – Paris (demo version)

See videos of Renkse here, and here.

(picture by RVDA)

Aylin

It is a difficult one…we do Filles that sing in French, and sometimes in English. But now we have an issue: Aylin Prandi is born in Paris, but has released a surprising  album with.. Italian classics from the sixties, seventies and eighties. A little bit comparable to what Mareva Galanter did a few years ago with french yé-yé classics.
But in case you are in doubt if we should discuss her work here, just look at her version of Adriano Celentano’s 24.000 Baci.
One song is a French original: Twist À Saint-Tropez, originally by Les Chats Sauvages form 1961. Belgian New Wave act Telex made a cover of the song in 1978. Now Aylin does an Italian cover, in her own style. Summer ain’t over!

Dick Rivers & Les Chats Sauvages – Twist À Saint-Tropez
Telex – Twist À Saint-Tropez
Aylin Prandi – Twist À Saint-Tropez

 

Lulu Gainsbourg & Scarlett Johansson

  • Posted on 05/09/2011
  • /Under Video

Snippet of the duet between Lulu and Scarlett, from Lulu’s upcoming album with covers of his dad’s songs. This is not the official video, this is Scarlett in a Moet & Chandon commercial (see here).

Salomé Leclerc’s debut: worth the wait

  • Posted on 04/09/2011
  • /Under Musique

Salomé Leclerc - Sous Les ArbresIt took Salomé Leclerc almost four years to release her debut ‘Sous Les Arbres’. These years of writing, fine-tuning, re-arranging and rehearsing resulted in a very intimate, subtle and layered album that reveals its treasures slowly but surely. Together with Emily Loizeau (they met each other for the first time at ‘Les Rencontres d’Astaffort’) she managed to record a rudimentary album with lots of folk-influences that nonetheless doesn’t get on the nerves. A tour de force in itself, but she succeeded. The darkhaired beauty from Québec is blessed with a very versatile voice that is hoarse when needed (Dans la prairie), bright and strong (Partir Ensemble) and ominous and exciting (Volcan). The guitar-driven songs are the perfect field for her voice to play on and simultaneously kidnap the listeners mind to drop it somewhere under the trees.
Salomé Leclerc made an outstanding debut (but I still wonder why a stunningly beautiful song as ‘Est-il Cassé ?’ – see video below – isn’t on it).
Guuzbourg was right, yearlist-material people.

Salomé Leclerc – Tourne encore
Salomé Leclerc – Est-il Cassé ? (live at ‘Les Rencontres d’Astaffort’)

More Camille

L’étourderie by Camille, the first single off of her new album (see an acoustic version above), was a nice teaser. But Tout dit, taken from a sampler that came with a recent edition of Les Inrocks, is less promising. In fact, I find it a tad boring. What do you think?

Camille – Tout dit

(Merci Louis M)

Camille

  • Posted on 31/08/2011
  • /Under Musique


The first track off of the new Camille album (posted about this earlier, here) was officially released this week – in French-speaking countries only, of course. Grrrr! But I’ve managed to find it anyway. It’s short, it’s tasty, it’s promising.

Camille – Etourderie

Catching up

  • Posted on 31/08/2011
  • /Under Musique

Time to catch up and bring you few recently released albums to your attention. First there is LouiZ , pseudonym of Kathalyne Detry, from the French speaking part of Belgium. She recently released an EP with 5 tracks, which is a bit “Cabaret”-like. As a teaser we bring you here “Le Royaume”, which is also the title of her EP.

Another EP appeared from Delphine Coutant. she already released three albums and this EP “Parades Nuptiales” is a teaser for her new album that will be released in the beginning of 2012, and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised. Very good songs, very complicated arrangements and a great voice. Looking forward to the album!

Louiz – Le Royaume
Delphine Coutant – La Parade Nuptiale

Vanessa

OK, OK, I don’t mean THE Vanessa, but here we present to you another Vanessa: Vanessa Philippe. And, to be honest, it is a bit late for an introduction, because she just released her third (or second) album. It is called “La Fille Sans Qualités” (the Girl Without Qualities) and that is definitely not true. This album is inspired by a book with the same title, by Juli Zeh.
Vanessa has a very sweet voice, which she uses exactly as we like it here: sweet, tender and sultry in some songs too. You can see her too, here, with a song from her earlier album. For you to listen to, we picked the first single of this new album: “La Robe Verte”.

Vanessa Philippe -La Robe Verte

 

Gainsbourg tribute @ Hollywood Bowl

  • Posted on 29/08/2011
  • /Under Musique

A Gainsbourg tribute featuring Beck, Lulu Gainsbourg, Sean Lennon and Mike Patton – if I wasn’t such a sweet, shy guy I definitely would’ve killed to be in the crowd at the Hollywood Bowl last Sunday evening. On Youtube, you can find a few excerpts. Like this one, and this one. Reviews here and here. A lot of very pretty pictures of  Charlotte Kemp-Muhl, as I understand it one of the highlights of the evening, here. If you know of recordings of the evening (Beck singing Les sucettes!), please let me know!

Salomé Leclerc

  • Posted on 26/08/2011
  • /Under Musique

As regular visitors of this blog know, Canada (Quebec) has A LOT to offer when it comes to gorgeous, very talented female singers. Coeur de Pirate, Marie Pierre Arthur, Catherine Major, Fanny Grosjean (of La Patere Rose, she will release a soloalbum!), Amylie, this list could go on for a while. And now there’s Salomé LeClerc. FS-contributor Maks was already infatuated by her (see here), I can assure you that you will be too. I’ve listened to a few tracks on her album (out September 6), it’s yearlist-material people. You must admit that first single Partir Ensemble looks and sounds very, very promising. More to come.

Salomé Leclerc – Partir ensembe

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