Helena Noguerra

Serge Rezvani is a big name in French songwriting, it was he who wrote the beautiful Le Tourbillon, sung by Jeanne Moreau in the movie Jules et Jim. But he wrote a lot more songs. For her new album Fraise Vanille, the gorgeous Helena Noguerra recorded 18 of Rezvani's songs, with help from Vincent Delerm, Marie France, Katerine (ofcourse) and the master himself. Rezvani is, like Helena, a multi-talent: he paints, writes and composes, Helena acts, sings and writes. Not having to make choices, doing what you want to do, that was what tied them together, Helena says in this interview. See a videointerview here. [Merci Franss!]

Helena Noguerra & Vincent Delerm - Les Mots de Rien
Helena Noguerra & Marie France - Jamais je ne t'ai dit
Helena Noguerra & Serge Revzani - Nous Vivions Deux

Jeanne Moreau - Les Mots de Rien
Anna Karina - Jamais je ne t'ai dit

Lovesongs and Marc Collin

Yesterday I finally got the time to watch my Paris Je t'aime-dvd. It made me desperately wanna go to the City of Light, it made me cry (the Juliette Binoche-part) and it made me laugh (Steve Buscemi never fails). It made me realise that it's been a loooong time since I've been to the movies - one of the downsides of being a dad, I guess.
It's also an explanation why I haven't seen Les Chansons d'Amour, a film by Christophe Honoré that was brought to my attention by Jorge (thanks again). He directed me to this MySpace-page, featuring short extraits. This user-comment on IMDB tells us the film's about a threesome, told in a very musical way. Films featuring Ludivine Sagnier usually are fine (she's also in Paris Je t'Aime), and she sings on the soundtrack. So does Chiara Mastroianni, also a big plus ofcourse. The music's composed by Alex Beaupain,

The quality of songs on the soundtrack differs, same goes for Marc Collin's Two For The Road project. Collin is ofcourse the mastermind behind Nouvelle Vague, Ollano and many other projects (older post here), TFTR is an soundtrack for an imaginary film about two highschool sweethearts who meet up after 10 years. They go on a trip, with dramatic outcome. The songs are sung by Feist-soundalike Katrine Ottosen (pictured) and Valente, who Marc met via MySpace. Best song is the theme, which reminds me a little of Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle for One from the Heart. Read more here, where Marc tells us that a second Ollano album featuring Camille was in the works, but never finished. Could you please get it back on track, Marc? Or have Melanie Pain finish her album? It's nice you lend your hand to English singing broads like Birdpaula, Olga Kouklaki and Phoebe Killdeer, but we wanna hear some French stuff from you too!

Ludivine Sagnier, Chiara Mastroianni, Brigitte Rouan, Jean-Marie Winling, Alice Butaud - La Bastille
Ludivine, Louis Garrel, Clothilde Hesme - Je n'aime que toi
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Valente & Katrine Ottosen - Two for the Road
Valente & Katrine Ottosen - Counting on You

Lina

GUESTPOST! Sky N. on Lina from Paris:

In the history book of supreme wet pop dreams, Lina has a glossy chapter for herself. Unfortunately, she’s done only two records in ten years. Her first album Dans 5 minutes, j’suis prête (1993) shows her with a dynamite stick on the cover and is a quite lovely affair: a reinvention of YéYé Pop for the fin de siècle including the hip Best Seller and a sweeeet version of Sugar Town by Lee Hazzlewood, as he’s called in the acknowledgements. No complaints, s’il vous plaît – a laid-back ironizzt like Lee would certainly have approved of the spelling.
However, the really explosive stuff can be found on Redevenir Modeste (2003), one of the premier (and outrageously neglected) French records of our decade. Just start with Girouette which you will find on Lina’s MySpace site, with her vocals oscillating between retro electropop and Erotheque, Miss Pinball Machine and pure genius, and the sharpest fuzz guitar licks you’re going to hear in a long, long while – delivered by an enviable guy operating under the name of Monsieur Calvez, obviously inspired by The Chocolate Watch Band and other psych heroes of the sixties. Plus: Delice Idéal, the sexiest m*th*rf*ck*r of a song you’ll be able to imagine, and 27,000,000 Typen (können nicht irren), a simply irresistible piece of sound beaming German lyrics right to another planet. Big words? No, folks: Grand Délire.

Lina - 27,000,000 Typen (Konnen Nicht Irren)
Lina - 27 000 000 de mecs (ne peuvent se tromper)
Lina - Superchéri

Alizée (and more)

These are busy, and expensive times dear Filles-fans. A lot of new albums by our favourites are coming up - Alizée being one of them. Yes, the girl who saw her Moi...Lolita was recently covered by Julien Doré, is back! In October Psychédélices is released, first single Mademoiselle Juliette is out now. Also, album track Fifty/Sixty (she namechecks Lou Reed in this) is leaked, there are even unofficial YouTube-clips. Very fierce tracks, she changed record companies, and toughened herself up as well. This fanpage has all the details.

Already released: Alors Quoi by Marie Cherrier. Folky, jazzy, vaudeville-y, that lovely girlie voice, what's not to like?

Via Dusty Groove, I found out that Universal re-released L'Amour a la Papa from 1967, a compilation featuring (older) songs by Serge, Juliette Greco and Alain Goraguer. With a really sexy sleeve!

I already posted one of the bonustracks on Biolay's Trash YeYe album (here), and now the other one. Les Séparés is also a brilliant cover, based on a poem by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore and made famous by Julien Clerc. He sung it together with Isabelle Boulay on her Du Temps Pour Toi album (2005)

Alizée - Mademoiselle Juliette
Alizée - Fifty/Sixty (radio-rip)
Marie Cherrier - Les Pattes du Loup
Marie Cherrier - Café Noir
Juliette Greco - L'Amour a la Papa
Benjamin Biolay - Les Séparés
Isabelle Boulay & Julien Clerc - Les Séparés

Melissa Mars

Two years after La Reine des Abeilles, Melissa Mars returns with A La Recherche de L'Amour Perdu. English and French songs, with electronica-touches (like Metal Boy, Androgyne and single Love Machine) but also some goth-lite (Mephisto). She even plays a country-ditty (Little Blue). Pascal Obispo joins for a duet - they joined forces before for 1980. All 'n all A La Recherche is a more upbeat album then you'd expect from the title, Melissa shines in the electropopsongs, her girlie-voice suits that style best. But I'm glad she didn't lose her black streaks.

Melissa Mars - L'être-Ange Mephisto
Melissa Mars - Metal Boy

Laïs & Trenet

The three Belgian babes of Laïs (Annelies, Nathalie, Jorunn) are making records since 1998. They write their own material, but also cover old European folksongs, in several languages, that sometimes date back many centuries. But they also cover Jacques Brel and, on their newest album The Ladies Second Song, Charles Trenet. Serenade Portugais wasn't originally sung by Mr. Boum himself, but by French songstress Leo Marjane, who's apparently a big star pre- and during World War 2. As always, the Lais-girls used the original lyrics, but wrote their own (beautiful) melodies. By the way, on one of the pictures in the booklet by their new album, you can see Jorunn (the blonde) breastfeeding a skull. No, really.

Laïs - Serenade Portugaise
Charles Trenet & Leo Marjane - Serenade Portugaise

Breut, Loizeau et les autres

There are two bonustracks on Benjamin Biolay's brilliant new album Trash YéYé, one of them is a cover of Françoiz Breut's classic Si Tu Disais. Does this mean maybe that Ben is producing, and/or writing for Françoiz next album? One can only hope.

Benjamin Biolay - Si Tu Disais
Françoiz Breut - Si Tu Disais
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Triphop's not dead, it's resting it's cool-capped head in the loving arms of Isa Somparé. She just made a great video to accompany the soulful Tu m'dis que tu m'aimes, with scenes from Paris that makes me wanna go there immediatly. Isa's greatest fear is that a wolf comes out of her closet and eats both her ears. See Isa's Myspace for more fun facts.

Isa Somparé - Tu M'Dis Que Tu M'Aimes
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Emily Loizeau's L'Autre Bout du Monde has been re-released with an extra EP, featuring covers and clips. One of those covers is La Complainte des Filles de Joie, by Brassens.

Emily Loizeau - La Complainte des Filles de Joie
George Brassens - La Complainte des Filles de Joie
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Coupe Bien Net Et Bien Carre is the title of the new album by freckled fille Sandrine Kiberlain. First single La Chanteuse is a folky strummer, with a disco-ish beat. Songs on her album were written by, among others, Camile Bazbaz and Etienne Daho.

Sandrine Kiberlain - La Chanteuse