When a literary heavyweight and Nobel Prize candidate like António Lobo Antunes writes lyrics for you, you're playing Pop's pantheon. On her 11th album Fado/ Tango (also released as Não Ha Só Tangos em Paris, for whatever reasons), Portuguese fadista Cristina Branco fuses the solemn Fado heritage of predecessors like Amália Rodrigues with Tango's seductiveness, also frenchifying her spectrum with a fine cover version of Brel's Les Désespérés , and a jaunty musical setting of L'Invitation au Voyage from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal . High in the charts in Portugal last spring, [...]
Sekä James Dean Bradfield ( The Great Western, 2006 ) että Momus ( Circus Maximus, 1986 ) ovat tehneet onnistuneet versiot Jacques Brelin koskettavasta kappaleesta Voir un ami pleurer (Les Marquises, 1977). Syksyiseen ja sateiseen päivään sopivan tunnelman lisäksi kappaleen sanat pysäyttävät: "So our defeats are just reminders / Of death that waits behind it all The body wilts before the mind does / Surprised to see how soon it falls" So now that money's all but scentless / Noses and consciences are clear The pointless [...]
Dan Barrett's music plays like a spectre in the night, most effective to the highly attentive and surveyors of the smallest details. It's something that exists and has its hand on your shoulder. Your reason for ignoring it has nothing to do with the light ethereal touch, but rather that it may trigger thoughts that [...]
The reason why Siobhan Wilson's soberly titled album Songs slipped under the FS radar might be due to the fact that it contains all English-language songs but one, a luminous adaptation of Jacques Brel's Voir un ami pleurer – as simple as intimately gripping, as quietly lyrical as vibrant, the work of a Scottish-French fille fragile to boot. If you haven't listened to her gorgeous version of La Javanaise, click here . Other videos here , here , and here . Siobhan Wilson – Voir un ami pleurer [...]
Though Sarah Nixey is British, she's a fille to boot, levitating effortlessly between the realms of innocence and lasciviousness, the subversive and the sublime. With Black Box Recorder – assisted by Luke Haines of Auteurs fame and John Moore, ex-Jesus & Marychain –, she recorded three of the smartest, though too much neglected pop CDs of the last decade. French Rock'n'Roll from Recorder's brilliant second record Facts of Life echoes the spirit of Jane & Serge, London-style, and features even a few lines in French: Black Box Recorder – French Rock'n'Roll Solo, [...]
Welcome to Wild Weekend , a.k.a. Week-end Sauvage , edition 40. Got some great songs sung in French (x2) and German for you this week, plus a bit of beat poetry, an Iron & Wine beauty, and a girl group gem the Beatles couldn´t get enough of. Just have another wild one, mes amis de musique . Let´s warm things up a bit with the help of more or less forgotten beat poet Kenneth Patchen. This month´s edition of Mojo magazine comes with a free cd covering [...]
May 8, 1945: Victory in Europe. Millions flooded the streets to celebrate the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany and the formal end of World War II in the European Theater. In the northern Algerian market town of Setif, a victory parade of 5,000 Algerian Muslims ended in clashes between the marchers and the local French [...]
There probably will be no music at my real funeral. I'd rather prefer a reading of the last three pages of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle 's Le feu follet . However, at my fictitious funeral this All Saints' Monday, my future ghost will engulf in the kitsch grandeur of the English version of Le Moribond. Jacques Brel's 1961 original is a bit too snappy for my tastes, and Terry Jacks's 1974 smash hit adaptation – originally to be recorded by the Beach Boys (!) – well, let's put a shroud over it. The ultimate version is [...]
What the fuck is pop music, anyway? I mean, I know it's short for popular music, and I know in terms of marketing it's usually geared towards a younger audience, but how do you distinguish pop from rock? What's pop-rock, what's pop and what's rock? What about pop punk or psychedelic pop? It's fucking confusing, I tell you. So this week I've asked some friends and associates to suggest to me what they would consider to be the best pop song most casual music fans have never heard. It sounded like an easy enough question, but I ended up with [...]
For the second day in a row, a 'new' Madonna song - ' If You Go Away ', in this instance - has leaked. We say 'new' because it's not new at all; (a) it's a cover, and (b) it's some track from a musical that never happened, ' Hello Suckers '. 'If You Go Away' is an English adaptation of Jacques Brel's 'No Me Quitte Pas' and has been performed by many great performers like Marlene Dietrich, Cyndi Lauper, Nina Simone and Barbra Streisand. We're quite fond of Dusty Springfield's version. [...]
Dario Moreno !! Un nom qui sonne très italien et pourtant, Dario Moreno était d'origine mexicaine et turque. Chanteur à succès dans les années 50 et 60 , il était aussi acteur et passa le plus grand temps de sa carrière entre la Turquie et la France . Nous avons tous entendu l'une de ses chansons ou l'avons aperçu dans un de ces vieux films qu'on regardait gamin. David Arugete, de son vrai nom, est né en 1921 près d'Izmir en Turquie où il se fit remarquer [...]
The next L'Amour Electronique is this Saturday - it would please us to see you there. We will be joined by a guest DJ, the charmingly monikered Ray Paul (or Eddie, as his mum knows him) who has promised to add a sprinkling of synth-powered Italo-Disco and maybe a drop of French New Wave. We'll also be playing the usual concoction of French bubblegum, psych and freakbeat, synthesized pop and electronic music from the early pioneers to the sounds of today. 9pm - 3am Free entry all night. [...]
To play catch up from last week's missed mix, I'm giving you two once again. They're timely with their themes, the first being all German artists and the second being songs about war. In fact, in many ways these two themes are inextricably linked. As everyone celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down, it inevitably brings Berlin's extraordinary history, along with Germany's more generally, back into the spotlight. And Cold War is war after all. I've written about how much I love Berlin here before, and it still remains one of my top cities [...]
This week's disaster theme came from a conversation I had with Blueback Birthday Boy Dylan last night, but for the life of me I can't remember how we got onto the subject of total cock-ups. I was DJing though, so maybe that had something to do with it. Actually, I know I've had an uneasy relationship with DJing in the past, but last night's effort was brilliant fun. It's all rather dependent on the occasion with me - too much of a dancefloor and it doesn't suit the general miserablism I'm into, whereas if it's supposed to be [...]
This week's disaster theme came from a conversation I had with Blueback Birthday Boy Dylan last night, but for the life of me I can't remember how we got onto the subject of total cock-ups. I was DJing later though, so maybe that had something to do with it. Actually, I know I've had an uneasy relationship with DJing in the past, but last night's effort was brilliant fun. It's all rather dependent on the occasion with me - too much of a dancefloor and it doesn't suit the general miserablism I'm into, whereas if it's supposed to [...]
All six members of Gabare One half of Gabare Before leaving France, I went to see a group called Gabare playing and singing beside the seaside. Gabare specialise in chants de marins et de mariniers , essentially songs about the sea (or sea shanties) and songs about seafaring men (and women presumably). I quite like sea shanties and songs about the sea and I really enjoyed Gabare's performance. They sang (in French, naturellement) and played for about two hours. All six [...]
Though Sarah Nixey is British, she's a fille sourire to boot, levitating effortlessly between the realms of innocence and lasciviousness, the subversive and the sublime. With Black Box Recorder – assisted by Luke Haines of Auteurs fame and John Moore, ex-Jesus & Marychain –, she recorded three of the smartest, though heavily neglected pop CDs of the last decade; a new album was announced for 2009, and we're still waiting. French Rock'n'Roll from Recorder's brilliant second record Facts of Life echoes the spirit of Jane & Serge, London-style, and features even a few lines en francais: [...]
A vide grenier (flea market) in rural France While visiting France, I was taken to a couple of vide greniers . Essentially, a vide grenier is a garage sale or a yard sale and is also known as a flea market. These markets take place during the summer in small towns and villages throughout France. Basically, people clean out their garages, attics and spare rooms and bring along their junk and bric-a-brac to sell at low prices. To my knowledge, these do not exist in Ireland where [...]
Pro-tip: If you're unfamiliar, the Netflix on demand feature, with the Roku player, is pretty ace (not to mention economical). Through it, I finally got around to viewing the Scott Walker documentary 30 Century Man. As a fan, it is a fascinating, not to mention informative, watch tying up some loose ends in terms of [...]
1.: La Haine2.: Grand Jacques (C'est Trop Facile)3.: Il Pleut (Les Carreaux)4.: Le Diable (Ca Va)5.: Il Nous Faut Regarder6.: C'est Comme Ca7.: Il Peut Pleuvoir8.: Le Fou Du Roi9.: Sur La Place10.: S'il Te Faut11.: La Bastille12.: Priere Paienne13.: L'air De La Betise14.: Qu'avons-nous Fait Bonnes Gens15.: Pardons16.: Saint Pierre17.: Les Pieds Dans Le Ruisseau18.: Quand On N'a Que L'amour19.:
Filles Sourires
katosblog.com
Obscure Sound
For The Sake Of The Song
The Cargo Culte
Swan Fungus
We Are Pop Slags
Le Mellotron
L'Amour Electronique
Condemned to Rock 'N Roll
Song, by Toad
A Town Full of Losers
An Aquarium Drunkard
The Mood Indicator 2.0
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
Out This Week 2/14
[listen] Diplo ft. Usher - Climax
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
Jack White – Love Interruption [Music Video]
