Well it’s time for the French Film Festival and that means the annual So Frenchy So Chic collection of Frenchiness. It’s billed as the unofficial soundtrack to the festival, with the tunes having very little relationship with the films presented; instead it’s an opportunity to revel in French culture, with a heady burst of contemporary French music in a variety of styles yet with a vaguely cinematic sounding bent.
Much of it is jaunty and folksy, a bunch of sweet songbirds and smoky voiced chanteuses over this distinctively French music. Though there are a few folks we know such Antichrist star Charlotte Gainsbourg, a woman with great pedigree, who roped in Beck to produce her album and here offers up a strange, though quite interesting percussion heavy stomp in ‘IRM’. Last I heard her she was singing with her father, though here she possesses this cold unemotive Blondie style delivery that is really quite captivating, and the music the most edgy of this collection.
On disc two fellow actress Vanessa Paradis vamps it up popstar style, sounding simultaneously disposable and sexy as hell. Elsewhere Nouvelle Vague offer a sad take on humanity, ‘Under The Flag’, which is previously unreleased, whilst bawdy party dudes Babylon Circus take ‘Le Fils Cache du Pape’ from their excellent new album, a reflective low key tune that emphasises some of the interesting creative developments they’ve made recently. Rachid Taha meanwhile seems to have swapped his whiskey for mineral water on the sweet, almost naive ‘Bonjour’, a duet with Louise Attaque front-man Gaetan Roussel. Even Roman Polanski’s wife makes an appearance.
Like any compilation that attempts such a wide scope it is a little hit and miss, appealing to varied tastes, yet if you want to know what’s happening in French popular music this is the place to come.
Bob Baker Fish
