Four Years of Filles Sourires

Time flies when you're having fun. Today is the day I started this blog, four years ago. Next week, my fourth official compilation cd will be released, Gainsnord. As you know, that is a cd with covers of Serge's songs by bands from the Lowlands. To celebrate the 4th year of FS, here's a mix of all the original songs by Serge (and Françoise, and Jane, and Juliette). Thanks everyone for your contributions, your comments, your kind emails over the past years, and the appreciation of great French music (sung by girls, preferably)! Special thanks to Maks, Sky and SOM (who will start posting soon) for the companionship, and to Mordi, who inspired me to start it all.

By the way, you can still win a Gainsnord-copy. Send me a guestpost of about 150 words on your favorite Gainsbourg-track (cover, or original). Three lucky contestants get a free cd! guuzbourg(at)gmail(dot)com.

Also, read this very good column by Nick Hornby on mp3blogs, and music obsessives. Very recognisable.

Download Gainsnord Orignals Mix here.

Tracklist:
Serge Gainsbourg - Chatterton
Serge Gainsbourg - Sensuelle et sans suite
Serge Gainsbourg - Sea, sex and sun
Jane Birkin - Une chose entre autres
Serge Gainsbourg - Shush Shush Charlotte (*)
Jane Birkin - Jane B.
Serge Gainsbourg - Danger (*)
Serge Gainsbourg - Initials BB
Serge Gainsbourg - Couleur café
Serge Gainsbourg - Pauvre Lola
Françoise Hardy - Comment te dire adieu
Juliette Gréco - Les amoours perdues
Serge Gainsbourg - Ford Mustang
Serge Gainsbourg - Qui est 'in', qui est 'out'
Serge Gainsbourg - Scene de bal 1 (*)

(*) = Danger was the inspiration for Benjamin Herman's track on Gainsnord (called Indian Hay), while Shush Shush Charlotte provided the groundwork for Zeker Weten's Hoe moet dat nu. Scene de bal 1 from the movie Les Coeurs Vertes is the original version of Je t'aime... moi non plus.
The illustration is by Rob Davis.

THIS is the little present I gave myself for 4 years of FS (and the release of Gainsnord)

Clichy Revisited

As Maks points out here, Vanessa Contenay-Quinones' gorgeous new video - not to miss, see below or here - is based on the Danish 1970 taboo-breaker Stille dage i Clichy, again based on Henry Miller's best novel which quite made my day when I discovered it on Dad's so very sober looking bedroom shelf at age thirteen, a pre-beatnik study already written in the early 40s though unpublished until 1956 (by "sex" publisher Olympia Press, for sure).
Actually, the movie isn't nearly as hot as Vanessa's voice, but features a remarkable soundtrack, Andy Sundstroem's hommage to the location nicely oscillating between Clichy and cliché, mélancolie style Parisienne. However, the icing on the nipple is Country Joe McDonald's (yes, he of the notorious Woodstock Fish cheer) title track, a laidback and tenderly explicit roundup of Miller's carnal accounts in exactly five minutes and forty seconds. Lots of sexy surprises, guaranteed, even if you already know what rhymes best with luck.

Andy Sundstroem - Clichy

Country Joe McDonald - Quiet Days in Clichy 1
Country Joe McDonald - Quiet Days in Clichy 2

Vanessa Contenay-Quinones

To watch and listen to for hours:





Vanessa Contenay-Quinones - Oddyssee

More on Vanessa here.

Sélection de Lundi: Natacha Le Jeune

The art of the vanishing act: Boyish Natacha Le Jeune entered the French music business as chanteuse of Parisian 70s retro rockers A.S. Dragon, who before had been something like a clone pet project of Tricatel owner Bertrand Burgalat. Dragon’s second longplayer, Spanked (2003), went widely unnoticed, though it contains Natacha’s probably finest performance: a touching pop rendition of Un hémisphere dans une chevelure (A hemisphere in her hair), the passionate seventeenth poem of Charles Baudelaire’s posthumously published collection Le spleen de Paris (1869). The same album also featured Mais pas chez moi, a quite catchy earworm that would have deserved to be a major hit. After another Dragon album, Va chercher la police (2006), Natacha quit the band and disappeared ... or rather transformed into Patti Smith & Iggy Pop, two-in-one style. Question: Fille? Answer: Grrrl.

A.S. Dragon, Un hémisphere dans une chevelure
A.S. Dragon, Mais pas chez moi

Order Gainsnord

If you heard the snippets of the Gainsnord cd here, and want to buy the album, you can pre-order via Amazon.de, Bol.com, Fnac.be, Velvet Music, Nlstore.nl, Concerto.nl, Sounds Venlo and probably some more webshops. We're still in talks of releasing a vinyl 12-inch with four songs, but nothing's solid yet.
The album will also be available via iTunes, probably in a week or two. Keep watching this space.

COMPETITION
As you can see on the right, my son Stijn presents Gainsnord, and it's just his taste (I never get tired of this joke). Yes, the cds have arrived. I am giving away 3 free copies. All you have to do is write plusminus 150 words about your favourite Gainsbourg-song, either sung by Serge, or someone else. Mail to guuzbourg(at)gmail(dot)com.

New Anais video

La Fiancée

Could this be the Year of the Claire? After Claire Denamur, here's another jewel in the crown of fragile French pop: La Fiancée. Don't know her last name, but she's called Claire and her EP is one hell of a way to start the new season. It's simply beautiful. Claire sings vulnerable, but not without strength. Her songs have angel choirs, thick Gainsbourgian basslines and subtle acoustic guitars. There's a sixties vibe, but it feels very now. Florent Marchet is on board as musical director and composer. Hope her album will drop this year. A very good year.
(Yes, she appeared on this blog before. Here)

La Fiancée - Cette autre