When Ricky covered Keren

Ricky Koole is one of Holland's best, if underrated singers. She's a succesful actress, but made three albums so far with breezy countrypop and -rock. All covers, slightly re-arranged. Her drive is to unearth lost classics, to introduce great songs to a wider audience. She gets help from 'pop-professor' Leo Blokhuis, Ricky's partner and a really nice guy, I might add. Together with Dutch tv-host Mart Smeets, Leo makes the radio-show For the record, two hours of Americana, soul and the odd French record. Auteur-radio at it's best. During the Tour de France, Mart presented the nightly talkshow Avondetappe. Ricky and Leo were guests one night, and she played a perfect cover of Keren Ann's Not Going Anywhere. You can see her here (around 32.30 min).

Ricky Koole - Not Going Anywhere
Keren Ann - Not Going Anywhere

In other news: Berry is playing Amsterdam Paradiso on 9/20. So that means GainsNord presentation on 9/18, Berry two days later and on 9/25 Radio Oh-la-la's Retour à l'école-party @ De Nieuwe Anita.

Severin et les filles

A comparison with Marc Collin's Nouvelle Vague is very obvious: Severin, an eighties-obsessed multi-instrumentalist, works with 14 girls from different countries to make a candycoloured popalbum. Only Severin chose not to cover a lot, but write his own songs (mostly). The result, the album Cheesecake, is VERY fillessourires-friendly. Most girls he worked with, like Mai, La Fiancée (pictured) and Lippie, I never heard of before. In fact the only name that rang a bell was Constance Verluca. On Dailymotion, you can see videos of them working together in the studio. The album is available on download now, after summer on cd.

Severin & La Fiancée - Les lignes de la main (VERY gainsbourgian, this one)
Severin & Constance Verluca - Johnny

Coeur de pirate

Celine Dion AND Coeur de Pirate on the same album. Yep, it's possible, in fact, it was already released. Because of the Jazz Festival in Montreal, a compilation came out featuring jazzstandards by several singers from Quebec, ranging from Dion to Stephanie Lapointe, and from Jean Leloup to Coeur de Pirate. All in English, alas. Beatrice/CdP does a beautiful cover of Someone to watch over me. A song that was covered many many times, great versions by Amy Winehouse, Frank Sinatra and the late great Ella Fitzgerald.

Coeur de Pirate - Someone to watch over me

Les Handclaps

A guitar, a laptop, a farfisa and a blonde cross-eyed singer. What else do you need, really, to start a band? Les Handclaps from Montreal play electro-pop-yeye, and have songs in English, German, French and Spanish. If you've been to Le One Night Stand parties in New York, you've heard or seen 'm. Their first album is out now, and sports a good cover of the Charlotte Leslie-classic Les filles c'est fait (see video here). Handclaps-single Cacti are delicious fruit is a good example of their sound and their energy (video).


UPDATE: I accidentally did not post the Charlotte Leslie version, but I've uploaded that one now. Added (thanks JW) is a mashup with a Fatboy Slim-sample.

Les Handclaps - Les filles c'est fait...
Charlotte Leslie - Les filles c'est fait...
Les Handclaps - Cacti are delicious fruit
ComaR - Les filles c'est fait...(Funk Soul Brother remix)

New Biolay, New Renan Luce

Two albums to look forward to: La Superbe by our hero Benjamin Biolay, and Le Clan des Miros by Renan Luce. Two gentils garçons who made strong albums before, and the first songs off their news cds are very, very promising. Luce returns to the mandolines that made Repenti such a brilliant song, Biolay takes his time (over 6 minutes) on the titletrack, brings out Coralie Clement (I guess), a string section a saxophone and some psychedelic fx. Superbe, exactly. Release of both albums in October.

Renan Luce - La fille de la bande
Benjamin Biolay - La superbe

Lili Ster

Among the heroes of Parisian singer Lili Ster are Bessie Smith and Nina Simone, but also Bianca Castafiore. No, she doesn't burst out singing the Jewel song from Gounod's Faust every five minutes. It's a wink to her family, who had to endure her singing from a very early age. She also mentions Bianca because Lili is very sensitive to the effect of a voice - it can make you happy, it can bring you to tears. It's probably no surprise that one of the songs on her MySpace (check that for videos too) reminds me very much of Camille. Yes, it's voice-acrobatics, but in a good sense. Lili is a genuine talent, capable of making great songs. See her cover of Mika's Relax here.

Lili Ster - L'homme a plume

Carine Erseng not in Suzuki commercial

If I'm not mistaken, a ripoff of La Vitesse Superieure by darkhaired, hotlipped gal Carine Erseng is used in a Dutch Suzuki-commercial. The guy behind the wheel is a well-known improv-comedian and tv-host. At first I thought they did use Carine's song, but no. Same thing happened with a fake-Carla Bruni, see here.



Carine Erseng - La Vitesse Superieure