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

Gainsbourgalia

A post with Gainsbourg-related stuff, covers and soundtrack-music. The other day I tried to watch the 1968 movie Slogan, the first film starring both Jane and Serge. Without subtitles it was impossible to follow, then again, the storyline isn’t that difficult and it seems that the director tried harder to make the film look good than to tell a good story. I haven’t seen Mister Freedom (from 1969), featuring Serge, Philippe Noiret and Donald Pleasance. IMDB says: “Mr. Freedom, a pro-America superhero who fights for God and country by beating, robbing, raping and killing anyone who looks like they might disagree with him. When he hears that France is in danger of falling to the Commies, Mr. Freedom heads overseas to set things right. When the welcome he receives isn’t quite as warm as he expected, he gives up hope of steering the French away from the Reds and decides to salvage what he can by destroying the entire country.” Right. Serge made the hard funkin’ soundtrack together with Michel Colombier, I found that one this week. Interesting is that this is the first time he played with the Marseillaise (he would redo the national anthem later). No clue who sings this song, by the way.

Serge Gainsbourg & Michel Colombier – No No Yes Yes

Coverwise, I bumped into the album chanteuse Marie France made with Brigitte Bardot and Gainsbourg-covers. She stays very close to the original versions, alas, but it has nice details. See a French documentary on Marie France here, see her sing Bardot here.

Marie France – Tu veux ou tu veux pas
Marie France & Aurelien Wiik – Bonnie & Clyde

And finally, we already knew that Neil Hannon and his Divine Comedy are big fans of French music (Brel, Gainsbourg, etc). New album Bang Goes the Knighthood sports a bonus-cd with live-recorded covers of songs by Jacques Dutronc, Vanessa Paradis, Jacques Brel and Vicky Leandros. But also a reprise of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s The Songs That We Sing – a chanson Neil wrote for her. See live videos of that concert on Youtube, for instance here, and here.

The Divine Comedy – The Songs that we Sing