Alka

  • Posted on 06/10/2013
  • /Under Musique

Blow Up Doll’s Mordi treats us to a guestpost on the new Alka album:
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Alka Balbir, French actress and now singer (don’t all the best ones do both?!) and probably model by the look of her, has released her first album – imaginatively titled ‘La premiere fois’. Songwriter supremo Benjamin Biolay has had his very talented hands all over the album, writing and producing the majority of it. Alkas breathy voice is very reminiscent of 70s Jane Birkin or 80s Isabelle Adjani – essentially that means breathy, almost orgasmic.
Combining the noughties equivalent of Serge Gainsbourg (Initials BB?!) with her vocals has resulted in an album that at times sounds like it could actually be a Serge and Jane lost classic – ‘Qui je suis’ could have been lifted straight from the ‘Di doo dah‘ album.
There are a couple of songs where Benjamin features – his duets can be a bit hit and miss (see Vanessa Paradis ’Profite’ ) but the ones on here work really well.
‘D’un amour a l’autre’ could easily slip on the end of Adjanis ‘Pull Marine’ album – one of the most wonderful parts of this song is her ‘Blah blah blah, blah, blah’ lyrics – sexy, naughty with a tongue firmly in her cheek. On a couple of the songs I wondered if she was actually about to pass out from an overwhelming orgasm – her voice achingly trying to keep up with the beat – just check out ‘Te satisfaire!’ As well as the more obvious comparisons to the Gainbourg girls – the album sounds current- there’s a sedated electronica vibe, so it feels fresh yet familiar
The final track is Alkas brilliant cover of France Galls song ‘Les gens bien éleves’ – very cute and a great way to end her first album.
If you like her – and let’s be honest, what’s not to like here? I’d definitely recommend seeking out a song not featured on the album called ‘Affaire classée’ that she recorded with Chateau Marmont.
I hope Alkas ‘premiere fois’ wasn’t painful for her- it was a pleasure for me!

Alka – D’un amour a l’autre

Mark/ Gérard (See Below)

When it comes to oblivion and bereavement, Washingtonian singer/ songwriter Mark Lanegan can be considered an expert on the matter. His last album was titled Blues Funeral, and on his recent one, Imitations, he’s covering Gérard Manset’s Elégie funèbre, with a tongue heavier than those of four exhausted pallbearers. That’s what French language does to Americans.

Gérard/ Mark (See Above)

Gérard Manset could have been the French David Bowie. Instead, he’s become a myth. Elégie funèbre is the last song on his landmark second album »La Mort d’Orion” (1970), his so-called »oratorio rock-symphonique«. For more about Manset and the album, see here. It’s all about sound and vision.

Détroit

Betrand Cantat is tragic soul. Best known for the black heart processions that were his songs with Noir Désir, but probably even better known for the killing of his girlfriend, actress Marie Trintignant, now 10 years ago in Vilnius. Was it an accident, was it murder? Is three years in prison enough? Big questions. Cantant was released, his house was burned down, his first wife and the mother of his two children commited suicide, his former band called it quits. Now, Cantat is back with former Sixteen Horsepower-member Pascal Humbert, as the duo Détroit. Droit dans le soleil is the first track of an upcoming album, Horizons. A more suitable title could’ve been ‘melancholy and the infinite sadness’.

More Greco

Guestposter Mark has an update on Juliette Gréco this summer:

juliette-greco-jpg_10297Juliette Gréco does not do retirement. ‘Retraite, c’est un terme militaire pour moi’ she retorts. And she can suddenly lose 40 years, as here at the Festival de Ramatuelle on the Côte d’Azur on 7 August.
At the end of a typically sharp performance of Leo Ferré’s ‘Jolie Môme’, the white light on her fades and for a second she loses four decades from her face – looking not 86 but perhaps 44, La Grande Sophie’s age today. Freeze the Youtube film and click forward slowly from 2min 42sec and what no still photograph could capture is on Filles Sourires.

Juliette also sang ‘La Javanaise’, and we can see the stress that caused her to retire after an hour suffering from heat stroke, as reported in ‘Le Figaro’ the next day.

In her heyday JG only sang for 45 minutes plus encore. So to perform for hour in August heat would tax anyone at 26, let alone 86. Yet a week later she was back on stage at the Festival Musicalarue de Luxey, in Les Landes.

One impressive yet little-known Gréco song, difficult to do on stage because it needs an orchestra, is now on the web : ‘Et là, t’y crois’, from a 1993 album. The magnificent arrangement of Etienne Roda-Gill and Julien Clerc’s lyric is by Jean Claude Petit. The lyrics are not long, but stretch wonderfully for 4 minutes. I have used my Youtube channel to put them into two comments boxes below the Youtube screen picture.

Elsa Kopf

  • Posted on 30/09/2013
  • /Under Video

If a gorgeous, husky-voiced blonde says she wants to marry you, while holding a big black gun in her hand, what would you do? Flee? Come along on a shopping spree? One thing’s for sure, the blonde isn’t afraid to use the gun, as you can see in Elsa Kopf‘s video for Sugar Roses. A Mazzy Star-ish, folksy song that is one of the highlights on her new album Marvelously Dangerous. Strasbourg-born Elsa sings in French, Spanish and English, this song’s taken from her second album that was produced and co-written by Pierre ‘Peppermoon‘ Faa. Elsa was in Amsterdam last week, where she did a few small shows with her extended Peppermoon family. She was brilliant, funny, beautiful and really demanding attention – even without her gun.

Diving With Andy

  • Posted on 24/09/2013
  • /Under Musique

5307060-7919958What’s the most perfect Autumn song? Les Feuilles Mortes? La Chanson de Prévert? The September of My Years? Celle qui by Diving With Andy certainly is a contender. It’s the only French song on the new (third) album by the duo. Remy and Juliette formed DwA in 2003, a trio then. They’re influenced by Elliott Smith, OP8 and Eurythmics, to name but a few. Juliette has a Sarah Cracknell-ish posh accent when she sings, the songs are delicate, well-crafted and very, very melancholic. Celle qui is the first DvA-song that’s totally in French – on the Benjamin Biolay-produced debut there’s an English-French duet with Coralie Clément. Also beautiful.

Diving with Andy – Celle Qui

Sandie Trash

  • Posted on 24/09/2013
  • /Under Musique

If Charles Bradley is the Screaming Eagle of Soul, then Sandie Trash is the Screaming Siren of Chanson. She’s an FS-mainstaysandie-trash-gif, appearing on the first Filles Fragiles cd with her brilliant Jane B.-cover, Sandie just released a digital album and a beautiful double-10-inch vinyl record (one vinyl is blood red, yeah!) with her trademark electrofying French punque. It’s loud, people, really loud. But at times, Sandie gives the pedal a little rest, and shows her softer side. In this duet with Alex Rossi, for instance. Almost every French male-female duet has a Gainsbourg-Birkin ring to it. Which is nice.

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