Frères Sourires (7): Arno Hintjens

When T.C. Matic called it quits in 1986, the Belgian radionews made it its top story - I know, 'cause I heard it that night. It took almost ten years before another Belgian band stood up that had a similar influence on the national popscene - dEUS ofcourse. TC Matic made very intense new wave, laced with funk, blues and French chanson. Frontman was Arno Hintjens, the Flemish version of Tom Waits. I had the pleasure to see TC Matic in their prime, when they passed my little village for some Easter festival. Hintjens was completely lost in the music, he jumped up and down like he was spastic. His lyrics were a bouillabaise of English, French and West-Flemish dialect. Although songs like Ooh La La La and Putain Putain (the latter was covered by Camille) became alternative-dancefloor hits, the band never really broke. They didn't fade away, they closed in style with one of the most beautiful songs ever written on Belgian soil, Elle Adore Le Noir. After TC Matic, Arno Hintjens started a quite succesful solocareer. His own songs are good, but his interpretations of other people's work are better, listen to his gravel-voiced takes on Comme à Ostende by Leo Ferré, or Serge's Elisa. In France and the low countries, Arno is still capable of filling big rooms. He also stars in very, very funny videoclips. And this is the brand new video, from upcoming album Jus de Box.

TC Matic - Elle Adore Le Noir (from TC Matic - Ça Vient, Ça Vient, Change Pas Demain)
Arno Hintjens - Chic et Pas Cher (from French Bazaar)
Arno Hintjens - Filles de mon Quartier (from Jus de Box)
Arno Hintjens - Comme á Ostende (from Arno á la Française)
Arno Hintjens & Jane Birkin - Elisa (from Charles Ernest)

Frères Sourires (6): Georges Brassens

Second guestpost in the Month of Male here on Filles Sourires is by Gerwin, on one of his alltime heroes Georges Brassens:

Georges Brassens (1921 - 1981) is one of the great chansonniers of the 20th century. Although canonized in the prestigious series Poètes d'Aujourd'hui (Editions Seghers), he did not consider himself as a poet, he wrote his texts to be sung, which has been put in practice by various artists such as Barbara, Carla Bruni, Paco Ibanez, Renaud, Noir Désir, Damien Saez, Lofofora, Sinsemilia and many others. Several of his songs were banned from the radio for many years, for instance Le Gorille for overtly criticizing the death penalty that was still executed at the time (by guillotine!). For an indepth analysis of his texts, see Analyse Brassens (french only). For Brassens aficionados living in the Benelux, the Ferme Madelonne jazzcafe, in the small village of Gouvy has a yearly Brassens festival.
La Mauvaise Réputation sums up most of Brassens recurring themes (non-conformism, anti-militarism and anti-clericalism) and in Les Trompettes de la Renommée he complains about the obsession of the general public with his private life (one of the rare songs where you can hear a light irritation in his voice).

Georges Brassens - Le Gorille
Georges Brassens - La Mauvaise Réputation
Georges Brassens - Les Trompettes de la Renommée

Frères Sourires (5): Pierre Lapointe

In Les Inrockuptibles' Top 50 Albums of 2006, there is just one French girl (Charlotte, but ofcourse), and a few French singing guys. There's Miossec, there's Joeystarr, there's Dominique A and there's one Pierre Lapointe. His name rang a very tiny bell, I knew he was from Quebec, and that he recorded a children's album with Ariane Moffatt. When I read the review of his second album La Forêt Des Mal-Aimés in Les Inrocks, I got interested. He's just 24 years old, but makes very grown-up, intelligent and well-arranged music. His MySpace-tribute site calls him the Tim Burton of chanson, a rockcritic wrote he was the lovechild of Thom Yorke and Barbara. Pierre likes his theatrical antics allright - might I add he's the Quebecoise Rufus Wainwright on par with Rufus Wainwright? He won prizes in Canada, contributed to tribute-cd's (Joe Dassin, Charles Aznavour) and stars in nice videos too.

Pierre Lapointe - Deux par deux rassemblés
Pierre Lapointe - Debout sur ma tête
Pierre Lapointe - Les Yeux d'Emilie (Joe Dassin cover)
Pierre Lapointe, Ariane Moffat & Garou - Comptine en mode zen

Frères Sourires (4): Hugo

"The title of his album translates as 'The Night Of The Seesaws'. It is inhabited by the naive and the bizarre, the childlike and the macabre...these antagonistic elements coexist side by side, like animals in some old fable (or like piano keys in some old tune). Each song is like a miniature short story. This young man nourishes a deep affection for mystery: he must have read too many books by Conan Doyle when he was a teenager...(or was it Steven Millhauser, Borges and Patrick Mc Grath?)." Pleased to meet you, Hugo Chastanet. The description above is about his second album La Nuit des Balançoires (2005). Hugo is a funny little guy, the biography tells the tale of him being awol for several years. The record company even hired a private eye to trace him. True? Who knows, but it sure sounds intriguing and, after you hear the record, not that strange at all. Hugo excells in telling odd, sometimes even cruel stories, set to jolly, Beach Boys-like pop.
I've posted a track by Hugo before, which prompted April March to send me an email inquiring about the singer. I pointed her to Crammed, and never heard from her again. Or Hugo, for that matter. Sounds like a song to me.

Hugo - Pas de Chance Pour Les Wilson
Hugo & Austine - Fouille-toi

Frères Sourires (3): Alexis HK

If you listen to Son Histoire, you'd think Alexis HK wants to bring back the good ole chanson days of Brel and Brassens. He sure gets inspired by the classics, but he also likes rappers and toasters like MC Solaar and Yellowman. Alexis (real name Alexis Djoshkounian) is very careful about is pronounciation, and the rhythm of his lyrisc - that is why a comparison to rappers is not as odd as it seems, or that is cover of MC Solaar's Nouveau Western (you know, the one with the Gainsbourg-sample) is out of character. Alexis wrote his first songs as a youngster with pimples and zits, later on worked the bars in his hometown of Nanterre and then got noticed in Paris by a record-labelboss. In 1996 his first album Belle Ville was released, featuring his best known song C'est que t'es belle. I got interested in him when a Dutch talkshow about Le Tour de France started with a song of his, L'Homme Du Moment (the talkshow focussed on that remarkable recovery of Floyd Landis, little did we know then). L'Homme du Moment to me is the best introduction to Alexis: hiphop-rhythm, prominent accordeon and that darkbrown, elegant voice of his.

Alexis HK - L'Homme du Moment
Alexis HK - Nouveau Western (live)
Alexis HK & Marianne Feder - Son Histoire

Frères Souirires (2): Jeremie Kisling

First guestpost (one of many) in the Month of Male is by Soundofmusique, about Swiss wordsmith Jéremie Kisling:

Jérémie Kisling is just someone special and I'm very proud to introduce him on this blog. Before I give you more information about his music, I need to warn you. If you are a woman, you'll fall in love automatically of his romantic and childish attitude. If you are man, try not to be jealous and learn all the good tricks this man can teach you about girls! Yes, Jérémie Kisling is the guy that girls want, and he's also boys' best friend! His debut album Monsieur Obsolète was a revelation in 2003: funny (not really in a Borat way), romantic (not really in a Julio Iglésias way), poetic (not really in any boy band way), singular (not really in a Michael Jackson way), melancolic (not really in a depressive way) and terribly melodic (so true).
It was like coming back to the playground of your childhood with a best friend (or a lover... or both). In 2005, with the second album Le Ours, he became the king of the spelling & grammatical mistakes. He was like a romantic dunce, lost in a zoo who sang beautiful fables about bears, swallow, monkey, blind dog... Last warning but not least : don't try to learn French with this album...It's full of silly (but concious) mistakes.
Here are the rtwo songs I've chosen to introduce his music. The first one is an acoustic version of a beautiful song, Les étoiles (from Le Ours), and the second one is an unreleased song, Le chat (originally taken from an untraceable swiss edition of Monsieur Obsolète).
Welcome to childhood again...

Jéremie Kisling - Les Etoiles
Jéremie Kisling - Le Chat (links work now)

Frères Sourires (1): Axel Bauer

We're kicking off this Month of Male on Filles Sourires with one of my alltime favourite French rocksongs: Cargo de Nuit by Axel Bauer. It's from 1983, it was Axel's debut-single and France went apeshit when it was released. Over 700.000 singles were sold. The video, which was my first introduction to the song, was based on R.W. Fassbinder's movie Querelle - it made a sexsymbol out of the then 22-year old Bauer. It took a while before Bauer got a grip of both himself and the mega-succes - albums released after Cargo sold poorly, his record company went broke and the young singer got himself into a musical identity crisis. After his move to Britain, he returned as a bluesrocker - the 2003-compilation Desintégrale shows that Bauer was a one-hit-wonder. Well, okay, his 2001-duet with Zazie is nice too. After 25 years, Cargo de Nuit still rocks, the electronica sounds fresh today and the lyrics are magnificent: Mais cette machine dans ma tête/Machine sourde et tempête.
The title and the song were borrowed and used by French-Belgian music-tvshow Cargo de Nuit, presented by Ray Cokes. This show introduced me to the song, but also to clips by David Sylvian, Scritti Politti and Elvis Costello. Cargo was also sampled by French rapper Tagada Jones.

Axel Bauer - Cargo de Nuit
Axel Bauer & Zazie - A Ma Place