Fontaine, Brigitte - rue Saint Louis en l'ile
SKU
02-VIRGIN4732362
"French singer Brigitte Fontaine made a series of increasingly strange and eclectic art-pop in the 1970s that gathered a lot of acclaim in France, although she remains obscure to an international audience. Initially she was an eccentric but accessible pop singer, presenting melodic and orchestrated material a la a more daring version of late-'60s/early-'70s Francoise Hardy. On her first album, she worked with arranger Jean Claude Vannier, who had also done arrangements for Serge Gainsbourg. On subsequent records she got jazzier, and then into more difficult directions of avant-gardism and art song. Her albums were commendably wide-ranging, and undeniably erratic. She could employ African tribal rhythms, discordant progressive jazz, pretty folky melodies, throat-stretching a cappella vocals, spoken poetry, and pious classical arrangements, sometimes with a stoned recklessness. On some albums she collaborated with the less impressive male writer and singer Areski, whose rough vocals contrasted incongruously with Fontaine's sweet and mature tone. Fontaine returned to recording in the 1990s, around the time her vintage work slowly began to accumulate a cult following among English-speaking listeners."-Richie Unterberger/All Music Guide
"French vanguard pop chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine returns with Rue Saint Louis en L'Île, an homage to her street and section of Paris. Leaving the many guest stars -- Archie Shepp, Sonic Youth, et. al -- of her wonderful Keleland album behind, Fontaine is found in the company of her constant musical companion, Areski Belkacem doing the lion's share of musical accompaniment and arranging, though there are duets with Mouss et Hakim on the stomping post-modern cabaret tune "Le Nougat," and the Gotan Project on the title track. Fontaine's futurist pop focuses this time on paying homage to the small infinitesimal details of life in her neighborhood and its vices and problems. "Man With the Motor Bike" is an homage to Edith Piaf being freely adapted from the 1956 version by the great singer and her tribute to Simone DeBeauvoir in "Le Chanson de Simone," is a standout stunner. Also notable is the haunting and beautiful "Le Veuve Cliquot" ("The Widow Cliquot") and the moving "Le Voile a l'ecole" ("The Veil at School") with Areski doing his best Serge Gainsbourg. In all, this is an utterly charming, beautiful and accessible album by the most iconoclastic pop singer in Paris, and one of the most original musical personalities in the world."-Thom Jurek/All Music Guide