Delphine Volange

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

Bertrand Belin

Where Brassens meets Tindersticks. Or Divine Comedy. That’s how I would describe Hypernuit, the absolutely gorgeous album by Bertrand Belin. With his dandy looks (check out this beautiful acoustic session), his storytelling and that deep, bariton voice that was made for ‘sprechgesang‘ and those light country touches (think Calexico, think Tindersticks), it’s the album I’ve been playing to death the last weeks. So it’s about time I wrote about it. Hypernuit is Belin’s third album. Stories, mostly sad ones, observations, afterthoughts, that’s what he’s about. Also on Hypernuit, story goes he made up the lyrics on the spot. Turn on that taperecorder, I’ll just start singtalking. Together with the similar Le verger by Bastien Lallement, Hypernuit will make the rounds at FillesSourires HQ a lot more. Excellent music for a Fall. The female voice on Y en a-t-il is Ann Guillaume (also in the SK Session video). Earlier, he duetted with Oliva Ruiz, Barbara Carlotti and Delphine Volange.

See the video for the title track here. See him cover The Doors with Pauline Croze here.

Bertrand Belin – Y en a-t-il