April March - "Paris In April" CD Album

April March – Paris In April

CD Album, U.S., 1996

Sympathy for the Record Industry

The enlarged version of the EP Chick Habit, and its a great album. What we have here is bi-lingual versions of the songs that were originally in French. For many in English speaking land this was the first introduction to the seductive world of French pop. Françoise Hardy, Gainsbourg all classics and it is filtered through April's sensibility. Also when I compare her recordngs with Bertrand Burgalat, I prefer this one. The physical distance from France somewhat makes this album more dreamy as a concept.

My parents interest in French poetry and cinema and then April's album set me up for what I had to do, which is to become a publisher. Its the small gestures that turn into something larger.

April March - "Chick Habit" CD Mini-Album

April March – Chick Habit

CD Mini-Album, USA, 1995

Sympathy For The Record Industry

I ran into this album in 1995 in Tokyo at the Roppongi Wave Music store, which sadly doesn't exist anymore. I saw it displayed in the listening section. As I was hearing it I thought 'what a perfect ye-ye recording. And without a doubt I thought she was a figure from Paris via 1960s. But when I got home in Los Angeles I found out to my shock, that the record label was only five miles away from my house, and that April was... American! After that slight disappointment of buying music in Japan that was made walkable distance from my home in Los Angeles, I focused on the music itself. I couldn't drag the music off my CD machine at the time. What she conveyed to me was a perfect world – a world of my imagination of course.

The production, the voice, the singing – not only from the era of France 60's but even better for some odd reason. April covers Gainsbourg among others, and she truly makes the music her own. Chick Habit is one of the ingredients in my life that lead me to do two books that are Gainsbourg related for my press TamTam.