Posted by Sky

When Gréco Met Apollinaire

  • Posted on 13/02/2012
  • /Under Musique

Certainly Juliette Gréco’s new record is a must-have. It’s about, yes, bridges. Those places that span rivers, where you can meet other people or the Grim Reaper in case you prefer to jump over the railing. The probably finest song on Ca se traverse et c’est beau might be Mirabeau sous le pont, a clever, multi-layered hommage to the classic French poet, proto-surrealist and enfant terrible Guillaume Apollinaire, written by 80-years-old Jean-Claude Carrière, script writer of Bunuel’s Belle de Jour and 10000 other classics of the French silver screen. Of course, the song works like a movie. And surely it’s adult cinema.

Juliette Gréco – Mirabeau sous le pont

Montréal Magnifique: Marie-Pierre A. (Country Return)

  • Posted on 13/02/2012
  • /Under Musique

Marie-Pierre Arthur’s brand new album Aux Alentours being a fave drug at FS headquarters right now, we’ve got an excellent reason to throw a retrospective look over the shoulder: Actually, her self-titled 2009 debut features a lot of that distinctive Opal/ Mazzy Star feel from those Early Recordings times when Kendra Smith was still around – including the highly artful Ma tête à off, a super laidback country slow burner with a tenderly floating quality. Similarly captivating: Her version of Nino Ferrer’s 1972 smash hit La maison près de la fontaine, slightly countrified for the Canadian hommage compilation Allo Nino.

Marie-Pierre Arthur – Ma tête à off

Marie-Pierre Arthur – La maison près de la fontaine
Nino Ferrer – La maison près de la fontaine

Une fille de 85 ans

  • Posted on 09/02/2012
  • /Under Video

Too often reduced to Deshabillez-moi, Juliette Gréco was not only the ultimate Existentialist poster girl of the late 40s, but also the most charismatic chanteuse of the post-Piaf chanson. She still is, her brand new album Ca se traverse et c’est beau featuring stunning lyrics by Amélie Nothomb and Jean-Claude Carrière, among others. Yesterday, the mysterious dark-haired girl who once was asked by Boris Vian why she never said a word, turned 85. Belated bon anniversaire, Muse, Amoureuse, Immortelle.

Do Your Math

  • Posted on 08/02/2012
  • /Under Video

In 1965, comic illustrator Jean-Claude Forest created futuristic heroine Marie Mathématique for French TV, kind of a little sister of Bébé Cyanure (Baby Cyanide) and 60s icon Barbarella who brought Forest world fame and was played by Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim’s masturbation blockbuster. Venusian Marie, “la jeune fille comme il faut”, appeared in six all-too short episodes within ORTF’s Dim Dam Dom tv magazine — a pop art kitten sexed up additionally by the low-pitched cool of singer/ storyteller Serge Gainsbourg. Extraordinary stuff, not to be missed. Giggles and chuckles by another outlandish creature: France Gall.

Marie-Pierre Arthur: Aux Alentours

  • Posted on 07/02/2012
  • /Under Musique

Problem with Jan/ Feb releases is that they usually are forgotten by the end of the year. Not this one. We already fell in love with Québecoise singer Marie-Pierre Arthur after discovering her on Buck 65’s brilliant 20 Odd Years and her first, self-titled solo effort featuring the lovely folk-pop gem Pourquoi in 2009. Her brand new album, Aux Alentours, features finest eclectic fille pop all the way, combining shades of 70s glam rock, intricate touches of 80s dream pop and glimpses of retro attitude: Her voice encompasses the raw and the smooth perfectly, the tunes changing effortlessly between catchy melodies, gritty riffs and sweet, at times angelic moods. Marie-Pierre has claimed somewhere that originality does not exist, but proves herself wrong with almost every single song: Aux Alentours may start in Reference Alley, but heads straight to Reinvention Boulevard in that Grand State of the Art.

Marie-Pierre Arthur – Pour une fois
Marie-Pierre Arthur – Les infidèles

Buck 65 w/ Marie-Pierre Arthur – Final Approach

Initiales D.D.

  • Posted on 03/02/2012
  • /Under Video

Last song on Diane Dufresne’s Turbulences, 1982. Written by Monsieur G., and definitely not a virgin suicide.

Le Groove Socialiste de Monsieur Krug

  • Posted on 30/01/2012
  • /Under Musique

Before ex-GDR superstar actor and chanteur Manfred Krug performed ultimately dreadful versions of old swing standards in Germany’s never-ending Tatort crime show, he was nothing less than the greatest soul man between Rostock and Karl-Marx-Stadt. With Ein Hauch von Frühling (1973) he transformed East German record label Amiga into Erich Honecker’s Motown for some serious moments. The éminence grise behind him was pianist and band leader Günther Fischer, who composed and arranged those intricate funky grooves that were tailor-made for Krug’s seemingly feeble tenor voice. Inbetween they explored some other genres, as on 74’s Greens, an international song collection featuring a sweeping version of Jean Lenoir’s all-time classic Parlez moi d’amour, originally penned for Lucienne Boyer in 1930.

Manfred Krug – Parlez moi d’amour

Extra: Sexy background singers and fat horn arrangements refine Krug’s 1973 socialist soul classic Komm und spiel mit mir (Come and Play With Me). Six years later, already in West Germany then, he fused melancholy and irony perfectly in Früh war der Tag erwacht (Dawn Arrived Early That Day) – the tune’s mood reminiscent of the late Dutch filmmuziek genius Rogier van Otterloo.

Manfred Krug – Komm und spiel mit mir
Manfred Krug – Früh war der Tag erwacht

Bâtard Pop XXII: Beat Serge

Jolie mash-up of Jacko’s Beat It and SG’s Comic Strip by the prolific DJ ComaR who already contributed to the superb Je Deteste Serge compilation in 2010. Two tunes obviously made for each other.

Covers Deluxe: Hush

  • Posted on 28/01/2012
  • /Under Musique

This is not a Ritchie Blackmore tune. Hush was written by Joe South for Billy Joe Royal in 1967, and only the following year Deep Purple recorded the song that became quite a huge hit in the US. Gallic cover king Johnny Hallyday recorded a quite lame French version a few months later, while Montréal-based yé-yé chanteuse Jenny Rock transformed the harmless psych/ bluespop song with the pushy organ into a sexy rollercoaster ride, fast, breathless, and highly energetic – a nice example that some songs simply work better with female vocals. No surprise that Jenny, born Jeannine de Bellefeuille, had opened for the Rolling Stones in Montréal on 4/23/65. If legend is true, Keith threw Mick a pitiful look before telling him: „Dude, eat your heart out.“

Billy Joe Royal – Hush
Deep Purple – Hush

Johnny Hallyday – Mal
Jenny Rock – Mal

Extra: Beginning with bébé pop tunes like Fume ta cigarette in 1963, Jenny Rock later did dozens of French language adaptations of US hits, among them the rousing Seul (cover of The Shirelles’ Boys) with an almost Janis Joplin-like performance at the song’s end and the cute Au Go Go (cover of Cool Jerk by The Capitols).

Jenny Rock – Fume ta cigarette
Jenny Rock – Seul
Jenny Rock – Au Go Go

A Fille Named Tomcat

  • Posted on 25/01/2012
  • /Under Musique

That girl obviously has the same idiosyncratic hairdresser as my cousin in Sachsen-Anhalt. After running away to Ibiza at age 15 to romance mythic schlock producer Michel Cretu – sadly to no avail -, Anett Ecklebe a.k.a. Toni Kater (Tomcat in German) had some minor hits in Germany before taking a sabbatical for almost six years. Her brand new album Sie fiel vom Himmel – She Fell From the Sky – features the same voice that is still irresistibly thin and girlish, telling a few more stories from the boudoir of a young woman turning 35 soon. Highlight of the album is the French language track América, a duet with producer Rudolf Moser, also drummer of noise entrepreneurs Einstürzende Neubauten – an amiable one, sounding like Benjamin dreaming of Chiara with Emmanuelle’s hand in his lap.

Toni Kater – América

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