Popera Cosmic - "Les Esclaves" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1969/2018 (Finders Keepers)

Going into the world of Popera Cosmic is like going into a strange foreign neighborhood without a proper map.  I want to say Popera Cosmic is a band, but it feels more like a theatrical experience than a rock band.  What I do know is that the music is arranged by William Sheller, a noted musician/songwriter in France, but unknown outside of French-speaking countries.  The producer (or 'artistic direction') is Jean Eckian, and the rock band is the French progressive rock group, Alice.  Beyond that, it's still a mystery to me.  Still, there is something wonderful about French psychedelic rock, in that when it's trippy, it's really a trip. 

The opening track "Les Esclaves" sounds like a free-form version of The Doors' "Hello, I love You."  "Batman" is what you think it is, but again, approached in a trippy manner that's all nuances and of course, like every song or piece on this album, a groover in the ultimate groove sense of the word.  In such a manner, it reminds me of Gil Evans working with Miles Davis,  that there are two separates thinking patterns at work.  Alice is doing what they are doing, but working in a conceptual model.  I keep thinking that this is a musical like "Hair" but somehow failed to make it big. Still, if one is into French arrangement music, for instance, Jean-Claude Vannier, or admire the conceptual albums of Serge Gainsbourg, one is going to find "Les Esclaves" a fascinating album. 

"Philadelphie Story" is a remarkable and haunting ballad that comes out of nowhere on this album.  They don't make songs like this in the 21st-century.  It's lush but goes with this gorgeous orchestration with the lone female backup vocal that brings everything back to Earth.  "La Chanson du Liévre de Mars" is a mixture of Love era "Forever Changes" mixed with a slow build up of the chorus which is "Whee."   Recorded in 1969, this is very much an album of that era, but that's a great thing.  Listening to Popera Cosmic (they only made this one album) is to marvel the skills and visions of the arranger William Sheller.   It goes from camp to sweet melodies, and it's a bizarre mixture of what can be a soundtrack to a soft-porn film, or a big budgeted counter-cultural (French-style of course) musical.  My favorite album of the year. 

Serge Gainsbourg ' "Le Cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg" Vinyl, Compilation, LP, 2015 (Decca)

This is volume one of a two-volume set of the vinyl release of Serge Gainsbourg's soundtrack work for French films.    It's an excellent compilation for those who want to put their toe in before putting their entire body into the bath water that is Serge Gainsbourg and his music making for films.  For me, it's impossible to have the name Serge Gainsbourg on a disc or CD label that it's essential for one to buy and enjoy.  But in real life, there is, of course, better compilations or albums out there than "Le Cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg."  For instance the CD box set "Le Cinéma de Serge Gainsbourg 

Musiques De Films 1959-1990."

For those who are not fussy with formats of vinyl or CD, the box set is the completist choice where one has all the Gainsbourg film music in one container (three CDs in the box set).  For the nerd, such as yours truly, I need the vinyl edition as well.  Don't ask why.  It's a collector's illness if anything else.  But to focus on this particular vinyl compilation, it's a gem.   Throughout his career, Gainsbourg worked with three great arrangers: Alain Goraguer, Michel Colombier, and Jean-Claude Vannier.  All three are represented in the vinyl edition of "Le Cinéma..."  

This is not a greatest hits collection of songs, but a thoughtful approach to his soundtrack work - which at times he co-wrote with his arrangers.   The one thing that never changes is the lyrics - which belongs entirely to Gainsbourg.   It's a solid and delightful collection of music.  If you are like me, this is a springboard or entrance to the Gainsbourg world.  Enter, and for sure you will be spending more money and time locating the actual soundtrack albums or EP's. 

Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier - "Les Chemins de Katmandou" Vinyl, LP, Album, OST, 1969/2017 (Finders Keepers)

It has been described as the lost soundtrack, due to the belief that the master tapes were burned in a fire, but alas, not the case. Just misplaced.   Finders Keepers, the great reissue label, have just put out this great gem of the Serge Gainsbourg world.  I suspect that the album is more Jean-Claude Vannier than Gainsbourg, but nevertheless, it has the traces of Serge's greatness and sleaziness as well since this is a soundtrack to a grade-Z film about French youth in Katmandou, and all the fun that goes with that journey.  

The album is very much in the same mode as the Gainsbourg/Vannier soundtracks of this period.  Funky workouts with traces of exotic percussion and of course, the sitar here and there.  The listener can hear the sounds that made up "Melody Nelson" as well as Vannier's great solo work "L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches." The beauty of the album is very much under the arrangement skills of Vannier, who is superb.  One is never sure what is going to be around the corner with respect to his arrangements.   He and Gainsbourg were a fantastic team, and this lost (but now found) soundtrack is essential to both fans of Serge's soundtrack work as well as with those who love Vannier's experimentation and sense of aural adventure.   Vannier to me is the French Jack Nitzsche.  Both were in tuned to their subject matter, whatever it was a film soundtrack, or arranging the instrumentation behind a singer - it's a classic mode of music-making, and one that I personally miss in contemporary music in 2017.   

Various - "Mister Melody - Les Interprètes de Serge Gainsbourg" 4 x CD, Box Set, Compilation, 2006 (Mercury)

The problem or the genuine delight, there is not one Serge Gainsbourg album to purchase.  I shudder when someone asks me advice with respect to choosing their first Serge album.  My honest reaction is to buy them all!   Although when push comes to a shove or a kick, I would easily recommend the box set called "Mister Melody."   What makes it unique is that it's 4 cd's that covers every major (and nonmajor) period in Gainsbourg's music career.  Besides making his own albums, his bread and butter job was writing songs for other artists.  This CD Box Set focuses on Serge Gainsbourg as the composer (or co-songwriter).

I bought this album at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, just right before I enter my plane back to Los Angeles.  It's funny that I couldn't find anything to buy for myself in Paris, and it was at the airport that I found the greatest music package.  For a package that has almost 100 songs, it's rich with quality.  There are the songs that we all know and love with Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and France Gall, but it's the rare or unknown cuts, at least for this American, that are the delights of this CD set.  Marianne Faithfull's "Hier Ou Demain" is a standout track as well as recordings by Michèle Torr, Régine, Nico ("Strip Tease" - a wow), Catherine Sauvage and so forth. 

Gainsbourg was a genius.  He also worked with the best talents, such as arrangers Jean-Claude Vannier, Alain Goraguer, Michel Colombier - all of them superb and their talents were individualistic.  Not all female artists, there are some male artists here as well.  But Gainsbourg actually knew how to use the female's sensibility in getting his songs across to the public.  "Mr. Melody" is clearly a work of many decades, and the one thing that is consistent is Gainsbourg's excellence throughout the years.  Even the later years have their gems.  Fantastic.  

Barbara - "Madame" Vinyl, LP, Album, 1970 (Philips)

The first seven songs on "Madame" is a seven-song tableaux or suite with lyrics by Remo Forlani, and music by our star, Barbara.   Forlani was a writer, screenwriter, and an actor who worked with Jean-Luc Godard (Made in the U.S.A.") and worked with Chris Marker and Alain Resnais.   Barbara is an iconic French singer/songwriter whose music and singing is very dramatic, and I think unique.   There is only "one" Barbara."  

"Madame" is orchestrated and arranged by Jean-Claude Vannier, who is a visionary musician/composer who worked with Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Fontaine among many others.  His work is on the border of the avant-garde and French pop song.  In a fashion, he's the bridge between Musique Concréte and the Yé-Yé.   So, the album has three unique voices, and it's a remarkable cocktail in an album form.    Barbara is the real deal and is considered to be the new version of a chanson singer.  Perhaps due to her songwriting, as well as being an early AIDS activist in France.   For the English speaking world, another avenue to explore through this French iconic singer/writer. 

Martial Solal Joue Michel Magne - "Electrode" Vinyl, LP, 1966 (Cacophonic)

Martial Solal + Michel Magne + Jean-Claude Vannier = Wow!   Kind of a super band or super musicians getting together for one album.  What we have here is the amazing talents of Martial Solal and trio (Gilbert Rovère on bass and Charles Gellonzi on drums) plus composer Michel Magne's orchestration and then with the additional genius of Jean-Claude Vannier's arrangements.  First of all, when you hear the very first note on Solal's piano, you're immediately drawn to Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless" in which Solal did the soundtrack.   And not surprisingly, when one hears "Electrode," you think soundtrack music because there is something incredibly visual within the music. 

Magne composed the music here, and Vannier takes that music to another planet.  It is jazz, but with avant-garde leanings and sounds from Magne and Vannier, who both can be experimental on their own each recording.  So what we have here is the Solal trio doing what they do, which is magic, and Magne's composition which is pushing the envelope between the medium of jazz and 20th century written score.  Vannier then kicks the whole project into another soccer stadium.  Recorded in 1966, it's a lively energetic album.  And for those who are hung up on the sounds of early Godard (like me) will find this album amazing. 

GEORGE HARRISON - "Wonderwall Music" (Apple Records) 1968

To be perfectly honest, I like George Harrison's music in The Beatles a lot - but his solo albums (including his much loved "All Things Must Past") leaves me wanting something more.  There are individual songs here and there throughout the solo years that I enjoyed, and I think his role as a record producer is very underrated.  Still, the one album of his that I love, is his soundtrack album to the über-hippie film "Wonderwall."  For one, this is the first album released on the Beatle label Apple, and therefore the first solo album from the Fab Four.  

For the first time, I think Harrison moved away from London/Liverpool to embrace Indian music.  The beauty of this record is that he's not doing Indian music, but putting his personality and style into that form of music.  So it's a hybrid version of George Beatle and Indian classic music.   Recorded in Bombay and London, this album is probably one of the first 'world' music projects - at least by a pop star.  One of the great charms about this album is that it really doesn't remind me of Harrison as much as Serge Gainsbourg when he did soundtrack music.  There's a Jean-Claude Vannier (Gainsbourg's co-writer/arranger during the early 70s) that clearly this album must have been an influence on those two French geniuses.  In fact, this album is very French sounding to me.  Why?  I don't know.  All I know is if you put me in a room and played this album without me knowing its history, I would think it was Gainsbourg, or at the very least, a French soundtrack album from the early 70s.  

So, the album is very much ahead of its time.  Even though Indian sounds were clearly entering the Beatles world and other artists as well - this is the first album where Harrison embraces that world fully, but still added his pop sensibility into the soup.  There are traces of Musique Concrete as well.  This is such a great album, and it's disappointing that Harrison didn't continue the great adventure.   Then again, without his presence, we wouldn't have those great British comedies from the 70s.  Harrison was equally serious and hysterical at the same time. 

Brigitte Fontaine - "Brigitte Fontaine Est...Folle"

Brigitte Fontaine - Brigitte Fontaine Est…Folle

I-Tunes, MP3, France

Saravah

The beautiful marriage between voice/thought with arrangement.  Brigitte Fontaine, along with the great arranger Jean-Claude Vannier made a 1968 classic, that is slowly crawling across to the English language world.  Vannier of course is greatly responsible for Gainsbourg’s Melody Nelson album, as well as countless others.  The beauty of his work is his playfulness and being true to the material on hand as well.  Its a balancing act that he never ever trips over that thin clear rope.  Fontaine, I think, is an artist who likes to work with others, and for her, that is her strength in that she doesn’t lose her identity or sense of purpose.   A classic piece of music making.