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 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.
An angelic female voice duetting with a male gravel-gargeler (if that’s a word) – ever since Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra set the standard for this musical template, our world has been enriched by tracks from Serge & Jane, Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue and countless gothic metal bands. Canadian singer-songwriter Zane, who sounds a lot like Lanegan, teamed up with the lovely miss Rosie Komadina, who calls herself a Croatian gypsy and producer on Twitter, to sing a part English, part French track that’s best summed up in these lines: ‘My mama said if you roll with the gamblers you’ll pay their debts/And sometimes you’ll run into black cats and a few regrets.’ Listen to it on their Bandcamp page (link below). By the way, if you’re into Lee Hazlewood, check out the superbe re-issue of his duets with (among others) Ann-Margret on Light In The Attic, here.