Posted by Sky

C’est Chouette 2012 Yearlist (7)

liminanasDoubtless there have been more captivating years in French music, and actually, it was more a year of single songs than of entire albums. It was a sexy landscape anyway, full of signs and wonders, and populated by so many people finding their voice. Maybe for you as well.

10. Raphaël, Super-Welter. Raphaël’s Chanson pour Patrick Dewaere is one of the most heartbreaking French songs ever. It’s not on this album which obviously deals with his new faible for boxing. Now he sounds like the missing link between Lou Reed, Bowie and Bashung.

Raphaël – Manager

09. Françoise Hardy, L’amour Fou. Always hated her nice girl schlager attitude. She was so much older then, she’s younger than that now.

Françoise Hardy – Rendez-vous dans une autre vie

08. Olivier Bloch-Lainé, Mercredi. I listened to this one about a year ago for the first time, at Vaea’s flat in the Marais, and it has never left me since. Fuck 2012. It’s 1976, so ultra-tender like it’s never gonna be again.

Olivier Bloch-Lainé, Mercredi

07. La Femme, Paris 2012. Surfin’ the asphalt jungle, riotous, juvenile and way cool. Along with Mathieu Boogaert’s Avant que je m’ennuie and Sebastien Tellier’s Cochon Ville video of the year: Say au revoir to the Eiffel Tower.

06. Dionysos, Bird’n’Roll. Mathieu Malzieu doing the Phantom of the Time Warp Picture Show, rollercoaster sonique style, and of course the French never understood what rock’n’roll is about (me neither). The right approach for a grand spectacle.

Dionysos – Sex with a Bird

05. Juliette Gréco, Ca se traverse est c’est beau … Direction liberté. A saint who hasn’t forgotten about la revolution. Adult cinéma including the finest hommage to proto-surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire ever written.

Juliette Gréco – Mirabeau sous le pont

04. Daphne, Treize chansons de Barbara. Norman Lebrecht once stated that French chanson legend Barbara was »all about the unsaid«. Daphne’s album is nothing less than a highly intimate approach to the spirit of the animal triste.

Daphne – Gueule de nuit

03. The Limiñanas – Crystal Anis. From Perpignan, Dept. Pyrénées-Orientales: The Limiñanas (see album cover above) throw Morricone, Gainsbourg and Fabienne Delsol in the garage blender and shake it, psychedelic sex groove style. Cool as shit, and featuring the sharpest fuzz guitar around.

The Limiñanas – Longanisse

02. Bertrand Burgalat – Toutes directions. Maybe BB follows one or two routes too many, but the ride includes Bardot’s Dance, an extremely infectious 70s style electro/ disco sweeper, as well as the irresistible Sous les colombes de granit, easily qualifying as one of the premier chansons of the year.

Bertrand Burgalat – Sous les colombes de granit

01. Marie-Pierre Arthur – Aux Alentours. Catchy melodies, gritty riffs and sweet, at times angelic moods. Aux Alentours is a revelation, starting in Reference Alley, but heading straight to Reinvention Boulevard in that Grand State of the Art.

Marie-Pierre Arthur – Chacun pour toi

See you in 2013.
Sky

Trois minutes à Dystopia

  • Posted on 17/10/2012
  • /Under Video

How could we miss out on this one? La Femme‘s Paris 2012 fuses proto-punk, surf attitude and 80s synth-pop into a razor-sharp garage cyberpop experience. Doubtless one of the most intriguing videos of the year, and super chouette apocalyptic fun.

Green Disco Machine

  • Posted on 14/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

It’s a tough job to track Tony Green (photo: Tony, France Joli and Gene Leone at Alpha Studios, Philly, 1979) down on the net. Not only because of his stage name, but also because he’s obviously quite a reclusive guy. Actually, Tony – born Antonio DiVerdis Mazzone – was kind of the Canadian counterpart to Giorgio Moroder in the late 70s and a famous regular at New York’s Studio 54, where he certainly also crossed paths with Margaret Trudeau, the free-minded spouse of then Canadian prime minister Pierre T. (»I met her. You know, ›Hi‹. There she is.«). Green, whose recording career began in 1969, wrote and produced more than a dozen of international dance hits for Freddie James, France Joli (a.k.a. the Canadian Donna Summer), or the legendary U.N. Before his heyday, Tony Green recorded the ultra-rare French language dancefloor disco smoothie Amoureux, released as a 45 in November 1978. Despite the infectious character of his grooves, the Montréal-based disco god of the late 70s and early 80s always has been very private. »I kind of kept to myself«, he told Kelly Hughes of discomusic.com. »I was a real loner. I still am.«

Tony Green – Amoureux

Françoise/ Serge

  • Posted on 14/10/2012
  • /Under Video

Actually, I like Depardieu’s slightly sleazoid version from Quand j’étais chanteur best, but Françoise’s voice could turn even a Gainsbourg song into an anthem of innocence.

Sunglasses After Dark

  • Posted on 12/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

Super deep bass voice, platinum blonde hair and eyes behind black shades: No, that’s not a character from a Pulp Fiction spin-off. It’s German schlock phenomenon Heino, who sold about 5000 million albums nationwide, fusing Volkslied soul and clap-along Schlager melodies to a kind of post-Wehrmacht barbecue party hits, telling stories of blooming gentian, compliant Polish girls and the next hardcore drinking binge. In 1975, the singing baker and pastry chef did a stunning version of Charles Trenet’s all-time classic La Mer, including a stupefying string arrangement and an unforgettable girl chorus. Before extended listening, it makes sense to recall the title of Heino’s autobiography: And They Love Me Though.

Heino – Das Meer

Hot for Teacher

  • Posted on 09/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

If you’re a teacher of French living in Germany, this is your chance to grab a free copy of an excellent compilation here. FrancoMusiques 2012/13 is the sixth collaboration between the Institut Francais/ French Embassy in Berlin, the Bureau Export and German schoolbook publishers Cornelsen, and another well-done one, mirroring the spectrum of modern French pop in a quite remarkable way, featuring chanson, francophone reggae, hiphop, folk, manouche jazz even. Most artists and songs have been already featured at FS, with a few exceptions, among them rap aficionados 1995 who beam you right back to that smooth old school flow of the best parties, and Breton musician Matthieu Aschehoug, front man of his band Askehoug – think Serge doing a Bertrand Cantat song with Jon Lord and Ian Anderson, and you’re halfway on the right track. Askehoug are playing Le Sentier des Halles, 50 rue d’Aboukir, 75002 Paris tomorrow, Oct 10. Don’t miss that guy.

1995 – La Suite
Askehoug – Meuf et Mec

Bâtard Pop XXIII: Serge NTM

  • Posted on 01/10/2012
  • /Under Musique

I’m aware it’s kind of a sacrilege here, but I always thought that Serge’s Je suis venu te dire is a fat bummer of a song. Now mash-up entrepreneur Tom Haggen – featured at FS already here – has provided the rough edge the tune always lacked, fusing Serge’s goodbye ditty with the vocals of 1995’s Come Again by Saint-Denis-based hip hoppers Suprême NTM, the abbreviation standing for Nique ta mère, French slang for a not too well-mannered MILF fornication. Haggen’s amalgam has class and style, and his blogsite is well worth checking out, including a wow blend of disco legends KC & The Sunshine Band and L.A. rapper Ke$ha. Video here, mp3 below, and shake yours as well.

Tom Haggen – Je suis venu te dire que je reviens
Tom Haggen – Shake Shake Shake!

Floating with Françoiz

  • Posted on 30/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

Our gamine lady of French indie pop: That’s Françoiz Breut, kind of a brooding indie folk figurehead of the Nouvelle Scène Française and with Si tu disais actually famous in France for a few hours in the mid-90s. Fifteen years later, Françoiz has come of age, and La Chirurgie des Sentiments may be her most consistent album yet. While opening with BXL Bleuette, an hommage to her adopted hometown Bruxelles, Chirurgie’s soundscapes, oscillating between airy mournfulness and serene mirth, chanson, post-new wave and splinters of electropop, actually lead directly to the vastness of the firmament. L’astronome reminds distantly of Clare and The Reasons’ dreamy Pluton, and the sweeping Cabinet des Curiosités beams the sound of Bahia right up to the asteroid belt, combining Gallic-Brazilian weightlessness, space age pop and easy listening scope to a clandestine super hit. With Chirurgie, Françoiz has arrived, though not à Bruxelles. Finally she’s at one with the universe.

Françoiz Breut – Cabinet des Curiosités

Bump Miss Susie

  • Posted on 28/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

After having been hadened, jonesed and kralled, there’s not all-too much left of jazz but a stiff with lots of funeral makeup. But actually, a few artists are still alive, though they’re hard to find: Meet Susie Arioli from Montréal, Quebec, who already celebrated the Great American Songbook with her Pennies From Heaven debut in 2002. Jazz reviews tell the usual nonsense of mellow moods and emotive atmospheres; truth is that Miss Susie has a highly seductive timbre, and with collaborator Jordan Officer one of the sharpest swing guitarists and arrangers around. Her new album All the Way features a gorgeous French-language version of the all-time classic What a Difference a Day Makes. Let’s make it short: Few did it better.

Susie Arioli – Un Jour de Différence

Bonus: Tchavolo Schmitt’s stunning manouche version of Différence, originally written by Mexican songstress María Méndez Grever in 1934.

Tchavolo Schmitt – Un Jour de Différence

Les Sœurs Calamites

  • Posted on 17/09/2012
  • /Under Musique

Quatre filles. From Toulon respectively PACA, short for région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The Calamity Sisters are Marion (voix, g.), Laure (voix, g.), Angie (voix), and Amira (percussion). Their self-produced premier album Wakin’ Up is chock-full of irresistible barbershop harmonies – think Andrews Sisters, think Chordettes or Puppini Sisters. Last not least, the album features a highly alluring adaptation of Monsieur Gainsbourg’s La Javanaise, written originally in the early Sixties for Juliette Gréco and covered probably a million times – this one being one of the finest versions in a long, long time, tender, sexy, and with a late nite warm lips denouement that turns fingersnipping effortlessly into a dream you never knew.

Calamity Sisters – La Javanaise

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