The son of Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc released a very good new single today, Demain. It’s the first track from the upcoming new album (out in October), the follow up to the highly succesful Comme un manouche sans guitare. The Django-vibe’s still there, but he makes it completely his own.
Thomas Dutronc – Demain
Her dad’s a language professor. Her mom is a ‘parolière’ for Zazie and Calogero. No wonder beautiful blonde Elsa Kopf sings in different languages. On her debut album, two songs are in French. One earned her ‘prix Delanoë’, the other is even better. The picture on the left is stolen from this photostream on Flickr, that features a lot more great pics of Elsa. If her pics and this song make you want to put on extremely soft sweaters and roll around in a padded room with fluffy towels and pink wallpaper – you know exactly what I’ve done the last few days. Sweet, innocent, sexy, superlovely, it’s all that.
Elsa Kopf – Larmes de caramel
Gainsbourg sung in Hebrew – the tribute album by Israeli popstar Shahar Even Tzur isn’t the first time Serge’s songs are sung in that language, but it still is remarkable. There was a tribute to SG in Israel last year (see here), I don’t think Even Tzur was part of that one. And on Youtube I found this. And this. Shahar translated 10 songs to Hebrew, ranging from Sorry Angel to several Melody Nelson tracks, and gave ‘m a rocking make-over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.Chez les ye-yes, with it’s klezmer-references, works best.
As you know, Gainsbourg’s real name is Lucien Ginzburg, his parents were Russian jews. Serge taught children of concentration camp survivors (there’s a very moving scene in the Vie Heroique movie about this), wrote a pro-Israel track in 1967, at the start of the 6 Day War. There’s of course the Rock Around the Bunker-album, a concept-album about Nazi occupation. But judaism or overt jewish references were never a big part of Gainsbourgs work. To be honest, I only found out Serge was a jew when John Zorn released his tribute-album in 1997. My guess is that the Israeli-tributes have little to do with judaism, but more with the quality of Serge’s songs. Sung in Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, Dutch or Hebrew, they’re still brilliant.
I’ve been trying to find more info about the Serge-tribute by Shahar, but I don’t read Hebrew and there’s a lot of articles to be found anyway. If you know more, please leave a comment.
Shahar Even Tzur – Chez les ye-yes
See Shahar play Serge covers live here and here. Listen to the full album on Spotify.
Yet another brand new Gainsbourg-cover, France Gall’s Laisse tomber les filles is re-vamped by Canadian singer Marième Ndiaye. Who has Senegalese roots and is called the ‘black pearl’ of Quebec hiphopband CEA (who used a big part of Initials BB for a song). Her solo-debut sports hiphop-, soul- and some African-influences. Laisse tomber les filles isn’t the only cover, there’s a version of Françoise Hardy’s Tous les garçons et les filles, and Mitsou’s Dis mois dis mois. Jean-Pierre Ferland, writer of Le chat du café des artistes (covered by Charlotte Gainsbourg on her last album), turns up for a duet. Old meets new, meets urban styles, and blends in quite easily. I’m not saying Marième is breaking new grounds, but she has a pleasant voice, looks great and her music is sunny. That’s how we like it here at FS HQ, when the rain pours down. Summer’s what you make it.
Marième – Laisse tomber les filles
Gainsbourgs Black Trombone is one of his best songs, but the jazzy song was seldomnly covered. Only a handful reprises, now we can add this sensual version by Danish jazzy singer Hannah Schneider. Her bio tells us she worked with several well-known writers, and that this song was featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Hannah has a pleasant voice and likes to colour her songs with 80’s styled electronica and jazzguitar. Shanghai, who provided the music on this track, is a Danish duo.
By the way, if you’re from Norway, Sweden, Finland or Denmark and want to keep me posted on the filles-front in Scandinavia, please do! Chisu, PMMP, Veronica Maggio, Annika Aakjaer, Säkert!, I love ‘m all! Here’s a Scandinavian singer-playlist I made on Spotify.
Hannah Schneider – Black Trombone
Delphine Volange – for a husky singing French fille, that’s a great stage name. On par with Vanessa Paradis, Marina Celeste and Charline Rose. Posted about Delphine’s first single last year. The follow-up is just released, the b-side sports another version of her duet with Bertrand Belin (see original version and gorgeous video here). That can mean two things: she hasn’t written much new material, or she’s using Belin again to get in the picture. I wouldn’t mind being used by Delpine (ahem). But let’s not get carried away here. Or wait, let’s do. Because she wrote Hôtel Chopin together with the great Jean-Claude Vannier. There sure is Gainsbourgian flavour to the song (Je suis venu te dire springs to mind), not sure if there’s a musical reference to Chopin as well, like Serge did here. With her Barbara Carlotti-like voice, Delphine sure makes me look forward to that album.
Delphine Volange – Hotel Chopin
Erika Spring (Erika Forster-Spring, apparently) is one-third of Au Revoir Simone. For Jacno Future, a tribute to the late and great Jacno, she and Devonte Hynes (Lightspeed Champion) recorded a version of the Elli & Jacno song Les nuits de la pleine lune from 1984. Together with a remixed version of Etienne Daho’s Amoureux Solitaire-cover and Arthur H & Neïmo’s Libellule dans un rectangle, Erika’s version is one of the extra tracks on a special edition of Jacno Future. Gawd, how I hate those extra-tracks-editions, especially when they’re released a few weeks after the non-bonus edition. Vintage old major record company thinking. Anyhoo, on the web, everything is to be found. As far as I know, this is the first time Erika sang in French. Not really sure, but I think I’ve read somewhere that she was born in Zürich. Figures.
Oh, and the original song is of course from the Eric Rohmer film of the same name.
Erika Spring & Devonte Hynes – Les nuits de la pleine lune
Elli & Jacno – Les nuits de la pleine lune
A German vibraphone-player and a Malinese balafon-player doing a cover of Gainsbourg’s Requiem pour un con. Found it on Blundetto’s blog, loved it instantly. It’s all in that indestructable beat, the remarkable sound of the vibes and the balafon (the instruments are related, see Kouyaté and Neerman play live here). The reprise is on K&N’s upcoming new album. You do know Serge’s original, don’t you?
Kouyate & Neerman – Requiem pour un con