It took Salomé Leclerc almost four years to release her debut 'Sous Les Arbres'. These years of writing, fine-tuning, re-arranging and rehearsing resulted in a very intimate, subtle and layered album that reveals its treasures slowly but surely. Together with Emily Loizeau (they met each other for the first time at 'Les Rencontres d'Astaffort') she managed to record a rudimentary album with lots of folk-influences that nonetheless doesn't get on the nerves. A tour de force in itself, but she succeeded. The darkhaired beauty from Québec is blessed with a very versatile voice that is hoarse when needed [...]
It's de rigueur nowadays: You are not an artist if there's no tribute album made for you. In recent months we saw a Jacno tribute , a Boby Lapointe tribute and a tribute to Bashung . And now there is a Maxim Le Forestier tribute album, called "La Maison Bleue". Le Forestier never gained popularity outside France (as far as I know), but in France he is respected for his chansons for almost 40 years. In 1971 he spent some time in the hippie scene of San Francisco, writing a song about it with the same [...]
Well, that's not exactly true. The contrast podcast theme this week (courtesy of James! ) is "A place I've never been to." That narrows it down a bit! Narrows it down for some people, but not for me. I've never been to a lot of places, as I am not what you'd call well-traveled. The list of songs I had to choose from was long indeed. (To listen to the entire podcast, you can [...]
There are some nasty hangovers in the State camp this morning, thanks mostly to photographer Claire Weir who announced at the last moment that yesterday was her birthday. In these situations partying is compulsory so it's with throbbing heads and churning stomachs that we force our eyes open and go into action today. Thankfully, the good folks at Europavox have decided that us media types are worthy of a free lunch which helps to restore some shape and form to our destroyed souls, although we respectfully decline the offer of wine whilst mentally calculating the shortest route [...]
This week State packs its bags and jets off to France to attend Europavox , a neat little music festival taking place in the town of Clermont-Ferrand. Now in its fourth year, the festival manifests itself as a series of concerts held in venues around Clermont and the surrounding area to showcase the finest European musical talent. And if that wasn't enough, Europavox also plays host to an industry convention, where indie music execs from across the continent get together to wheel and deal. Here's just some of the acts we're looking forward to: [...]
Salut à tous ! Jouons un brin : ami qui lis mon post, sauras-tu voir un court mot, pourtant courant, mais manquant ici ? Un pin's parlant par gagnant. Allons-y aujourd'hui pour trois chansons qui ont fini au top sur mon iPod (sur mon MacBook aussi). Jacno , pur dandy 80s pas tout à fait jovial, nous a pondu un vrai hit, circa 1980, qui passa jamais à la radio (ignorants !), tombant dans un oubli profond. Pour information, j'ai ouï la chanson sur un CD [...]
Un avant goût d'une cascade de découvertes, oui, ça va nous faire vibrer. jim noir -my patch- kitty, daisy & lewis -going up the country- "Super! mon amour" a tenu toutes ces promesses: handsome furs -dead+rural- françois virot -cascade kisses- pour dormir moins bête: emily loizeau -la dernière pluie-
Songs in which the singer (or someone else) whistles are an acquired taste. Most of the time, it's a cheap gimmick, that drives me mad ( example ). Sometimes, it fits ( example ). Sweet Emily Loizeau has made a jazzy folky song (part French, part English), for her upcoming new album Le Pays Sauvage, that shows that yes, you can make whistling add to the summer's day atmosphere. Looking forward to that album (in February) very, very much. But please, don't whistle too much. Emily Loizeau - Sister
The Center for Hellenic Study at Harvard University published a collection of poetry by C.P. Cavafy. Each of the poems are arranged chronologically and set beside the original Greek text. While deciding between three Cavafy collections at the bookstore, I chose this one precisely because it contained the original Greek. Now, I can't read a lick of Greek, but I like the idea that if someone did, I could pull out my Cavafy and demand them to read the texts aloud. On the inclusion of Cavafy's original Greek, the book's foreword explains: "Translation, by definition, entails a [...]
Fargo a toujours été un label intrigant. Intrigant dans le bon sens du terme : un label qui avant les mp3 et les MySpace distribuait des compils gratuites à la sortie des concerts. Un label Français qui allait chercher et soutenir des artistes américains. Qui savait aussi soutenir de belles perles, prendre des risques, et réussir, parfois à faire aimer au public français des chansons qu'on imaginait inexportables. Tout cela, on le devine à travers les Concerts à emporter que nous avons filmé avec leurs artistes. Voyez plutôt. Le Festival Fargo, qui [...]
I'm back! I didn't realize how much I truly enjoyed writing this blog until I was without it for a good two weeks. But fear not, a whole bunch of trial and error on my part led to the site getting even more screwed up, then eventually I figured it all out and got it working again. Word to the wise, don't fix a broken blog when you yourself barely know what you're doing. But I'm stubborn like that so what can you do? But, I've got the newest version of Wordpress now, which is pretty fancy, and for the [...]
So I wasn't sure what I was going to post for today's Compare & Contrast . Then, in the mail came the answer: On April 15, Everclear will release " The Vegas Years ". A collection of covers they have played both live and on record since 1994. One of them is this Neil Young cover. (I will probably catch hell from EMI/Capital for posting this, so grab the track while you can.) Neil Young ∞ Pocahontas (live) [...]
So, Springfield's pretty much flooded. It has rained non-stop since probably 8pm last night. The tiny creek next to my uncle's shop is now a raging river and driving around town, since Springfield's drainage system is terrible, is near impossible and a lot of intersections you just have to take backroads around. Let's just say me and the weather here in Springfield have been on bad terms for quite a while now. This year has been ridiculous. T-shirt weather, next day ice storm. T-shirt weather, next couple days flooding. I've never been ready for Spring and Summer to arrive in [...]
Time for me to introduce you couple artists from the French scene. Ladies first, let's start this serie with Emily Loizeau ! With a double french-british culture, her music is a subtle result of eclectic inspirations from Brassens, Moreau to Dylan, Waits or R. Newman. Be sure this mixture brings unique and varied compositions based on piano, guitar and double bass ! In 2005, she has been signed by Fargo Records - an excellent french label - who allowed her to both released her first full length album 'L'autre bout du monde' and produced a [...]
chanson française // singer-songwriter Influenced by such French chanson classics as Serge Gainsbourg, the melancholic vein of American music idols, such as Tom Waits and Bob Dylan, and inventive Andrew Bird's compositions, Emily Loizeau carefully crafts her tuneful melodies. Charming with her sincere joyfulness and wit, piano-playing singer and composer, Emily brings so much warmth and quirky freshness to nouvelle scène Française. The playfulness of her debut album L'Autre Bout Du Monde (2006), its catchy choruses and certain cabaret pop moments, is infinitely enjoyable. Whimsical piano fueled [...]
Gainsbourg is a major figure on this blog, but Michel Polnareff should be one as well. (Well, this is not the first time MP appears on FS, see here and here ) When it comes to great songs, outrageous behaviour, beautiful women, writing soundtracks, high drama (suicide of his best friend, war with the taxman) or tributes, Michel is on par with Serge. Thanks to René , I just received an update of the Polnareff- tribute that was released in 1993, re-released in 2001 and again updated just recently. Artists like Pulp [...]
Easily my best show yet. The host after me quit his show, so I just did a two hour show instead. It was full of great music, screw ups left and right, and good conversations with people online. The best part had to be when I started talking in the middle of the Page France song because I thought it was over since I didn't really know the song all that well, then out of nowhere it just bursts back into the song and I was still talking. Whoops. Adds character to my show I guess. Much needed humor or [...]
Thanks to Daily Motion , I was introduced to this beautiful video for Emily Loizeau 's Je Suis Jalouse . Here's both the video and the mp3. See more videos by Bridle, the maker of this clip, here . Emily Loizeau - Je Suis Jalouse
It recently came to my attention that my friend Holly, as in one of my main music buddies here at school, and who is in Europe at the moment, had never heard Andrew Bird's Mysterious Production of Eggs . "I should've gotten this from you a long time ago," she says to me. "Uh, yeah. How did that one slip through the cracks?" I responded. After that conversation, I began listening to Andrew Bird obsessively like I usually do once someone brings him up again. From there I thought, [...]
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[Listen] The Decemberists - "One Engine"
