Guestpost! FransS on Fabienne:
“She’s exactly your ‘thing, right?” With that sentence Guuzbourg tried to convince me to write a guest post on Fabienne Delsol’s new album On my mind. And yes, I have to agree, I love the girly retro sixties jangling sound of Fabienne and her colleagues like April March and Holly Golightly. The big plus: Fabienne is really French.
Born in Limoges, Fabienne left for the UK around 1995 to become the singer of The Bristols, one of the many UK garage bands of that period. With that band she released two albums before going solo in 2003. As a solo singer she released two albums No Time For Sorrows (2003) and Between You And Me (2007). Both albums were filled with songs in French and English (but with a lovely French accent that gives French singers in English that certain “je ne sais quoi”). Sweet lovely songs that directly reminds you of early British Sixties music (organs!, guitars! melodies!) and authentic French yé-yé.
On her new album Fabienne Delsol sounds a bit different. Still English and French songs, still a lovely authentic sixties sound, but it is like she moved in time from 1965/66 to 1968/69. Some more psychedelic sounds in the music, more melancholy in the lyrics. It is all a bit darker, or maybe better a bit more mature. This isn’t a France Gall anymore you could fool with Les Succettes, this is a young woman who already had her share. When her earlier albums were spring and summer albums, with this one Fabienne Delsol has arrived in the autumn. And given the weather outside, On my mind deserves a lot of playing time in the coming months.
Fabienne Delsol – Pas adieu
The promo sheet tells us that Caroline Lacaze moved to Hamburg last year, and that’s where she also recorded her debut album En Route. It’s an okay one, though she’s apparently still under way; somehow the CD feels like she’s a bit undecided where she’s really heading, riding along the city limits of Chanson Beach, Funk Falls or Soulboro, and stopping a few times on the outskirts of Sixtiesville looking out for April March and Fabienne Delsol – including the instrumental garage beat of Road Stop and a cover version of Brigitte & Serge’s immortal 1967 Harley Davidson that suddenly sounds like that machine was always part of the feelgood soul soundtrack of The Commitments.