Aussie Melodie

Australia calling! Next week, Mélodie Française is released, a compilation of Aussie bands covering French classics and lesser known gems. Artists I’d never heard of, like Gossling, Big Scary and The Walking Who tackle songs by Serge (of course), Françoise Hardy and Renaud. Two tasters are out there, a very nifty version of Gainsbourg & Bardot’s Bonnie & Clyde by Deep Sea Arcade with Megan Washington, and the Michel Berger-penned La minute de silence shown above. As far as I know, the comp is not released outside of Australia, but I’ll try’n get a copy.
(Merci Marjorie)

Deep Sea Arcade & Megan Washington – Bonnie & Clyde

Lanu

Roxy Music’s 1982 hit single More Than This easily qualifies as one of the most oily ballads of the New Wave, and the greasy karaoke performance by Bill Murray in Lost in Translation just served to prove the old Marx statement that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. On his brand new album Her 12 Faces – a perfectly laid-back, positively eclectic and estival record with awesome guest singer Megan Washington on several tracks –, Australian pop entrepreneur Lance Ferguson alias Lanu does the trick: He transforms Roxy’s bathos into French-language electro tune raffinement – a jolie Gallic dot on an otherwise all-English, highly innovative early summer album.

Lanu – More Than This

Gorgeous hommage to Lanu’s grandfather, famous Hawaiian steel guitarist Bill Wolfgramm who recorded New Zealand’s first ever LP record back in 1956:

Lanu – The Coral Route