Black Botton

Frédéric Botton - Attention à la grosse boule qui descend l'escalier

Frédéric Botton - Pi 12 3,14116 

Quite an underrated symbol of a certain parisian elegance, Frédérick Botton remains too often missing in the celebrations, as many others whose songrwiting was discreetely camouflaged by the personality of people they were writing for. Botton had a singer carreer by himself, though. His frank voice, delicate, is often praised by people who happen to know song like "Le voyage abandonné" Viens faire dodo sur mes dollars, or Le Black Botton. In case of his craziest singles (La grosse boule, Pi 12 3, 14116), arrangements by Alain Goraguer decidedly bring the incongruity to the next level of bewilderment.





Amarande - Le Pétrole

H comme hippies for Dani (see below), Pêche abricot for Zizi Jeanmaire, Les hommes sont des poupées for Alice Sapritch... Botton wrote for many. A bourgeois part of me doesn't mind to fantasize about his acquointance with Françoise Sagan, his Hausmann apartment, his brands of whiskey and nights in cabarets. In case of Amarande, we have an actress who worked a lot for theater + a few movies, and sang a bunch of singles. Apart from Le Pétrole, composed by our man, you might briefly check her other single attempts A quoi bon se presser, or L'Amour et le rugby.



























Alix - Asphalte

During the 80's, Botton seems to write more and more scores for the parisian cabaret Le Paradis Latin. You can find a few excerpts of Champagne on Youtube, and a LP was released of Le Rayon bleu that's not really worth being uploaded. An unexpected yet successful incursion in the field of synth-wave may be noticed with that song for Nathalie Reims, whose singer carreer was partly made under the alias Alix. Sister of Bettina Rheims, in a jet-set love relationship with Leo Scheer, then Claude Berri, she also commited another single, Ca tourne à l'envers.























Eugène Eugène Eugène

In the field of commercial works, that good-looking 7" was used as promo gift by hairdresser Eugène, that sadly doesn't exist anymore in rue d'Athènes à Paris.

Rhyme in O

Patricia Botton - Disco

It could have been the unusual entry I was waiting for to talk about composer/songwriter Frédéric Botton. But holidays on hold: we will preserve the light spirit of this disco summer B-side excerpt from his wife's discography and keep the Big One for september. Therefore, to follow very soon: Mr Botton, the elegant husband. Slightly strange string arrangements in this one ? The track is orchestrated by Michel Bernholc.



Bernholc, the man behind Les Bronzés' soundtrack, as well as countless hits by Françoise Hardy, Michel Berger, Claude François & many more also did a noteworthy library opus in the Patchwork serie alongside Vladimir Cosma. Plus, he looked cool.

Side machine, side solution

Patrick Abrial - Slag machine


Claude Morgan - Slag solution

Wether it may be due to the piano or to the wah wah sound, this item is so representative of the french freakbeat wave that it instantly evocates some of Jean-Claude Vannier's production, or De Roubaix's incursions in funk for L'homme orchestre soundtrack.
It wasn't that usual for a 7inch to also include such collage elements at the time: another reason to file this among the most remarquable ones produced by Patrick Abrial's, an outsider rock singer you might remind for Le grand ordinateur, that Mr Aubrun already posted here. Credited for the "solution" side, his acolyte Claude Morgan is known for being a member of the french hitmaker combo Bimbo Jet, whose classic 7inch may be found in almost every pile of decent french material.

Spécial discorchestral

Michel Cenni - Space echoes

Another 7" in the infinite serie of obscure french grooves from the seventies, layering its twister beat on epic melodic surf elements: as the title says, quite a tribute in itself to the Space echo effect.

Michel Cenni remains quite a mystery. Was he maybe related to the Pop concerto orchestra ? His second (and only?) solo appearance consists in a great and praised space disco maxi by Optik 5, "official music for the 10th festival of fantastic and science fiction cinema".





















Michel Cenni - Optik 5 (extract)

Ranne moi mon coq

Thermogène - Ranne moi mon coq


Thermogène - Antoine sorte l'Angleterre

An perfectly magical sega 7inch produced again by a mysterious singer that nobody seems to be able to portray outside of La Réunion island: if any maloya specialist can provide some sort of informations about the mysterious Moan Thermogène, his orchestra "Mento Latene", or their thrilling taste for synths and disco laser toms, he will be more than welcome.

As far as we know, one of the strangest thing recorded at Studio Issa / Saint-Denis de la Réunion.

Fantasmusics

Fantasmusics - Uccelli Peccatum


Fantasmusics - Draculabyrinthe


Fantasmusics - Escaliers sans fin


Fantasmusics - Acqua Capricciosa

There was a high range of probability for obscure composer Dominique Laurent to be somewhere responsible for some kind of unheeded masterpiece. Following our first detailed post dedicated to this vein of french records "for the physical expression", here comes the missing item, yet the most striking and diversified: blending electronics, organ, bossa or collage elements, it is rich enough so you can even hear a drumtrick that would be popularised 10 years after by something named ... "jungle" ?

Initially created as a soundtrack for the show Abracadabracula by french Mimes Pinok & Matho, this release from 1983 strangely echoes the recent wave of interest for some of the Jean Rollin's most psychedelic soundtracks: playing with old-time fantasy clichés, it remains sometimes in a very close way genuinely mentally disturbed.

























Partly mellowed with time passing by, Dominique Laurent is still active as a composer and interpreter for various theater, ballet and commercial works. Apart from the Plume d'Elan 80's TV anthem previously mentionned (also check on your way Les Viratatoums), a few extra infos that appeared online recently lead us to discover how he actually also composed children song for the holy Garcimore.

Robots in Paradia

Roland Bocquet - Djerba

Bocquet isn't exactly what you would call hidden treasure now that he already resurfaced on several blogs, mainly with his double Robot bleu / Robot rose. But I already noticed how much some of our followers occasionally don't mind a subsequent post overviewing or summarizing one of their heroes' course. And the comeback of the mighty Henriette Coulouvrat on stage, thanks to the blatant monastical efforts of Musikmekanikcircus, gives me a good opportunity to talk a bit about the one she describes as her favorite composer.




Catharsis - Christophe

Starting as a decisive member of the french prog band Catharsis, Bocquet's career firstly follows the band's impressive discography. Keyboardist, he brings a highly specific Farfisa touch that made the band's sound distinctive, as you can notice on that b-side packed under a delicate artwork. Following the Catharsis' cessation of activity, he released the Paradia solo LP, followed by Robot rose (including songs from Paradia) and the brand new Robot bleu on the library label RCA media. His perreyesque Marche des canards as well as songs Le flipper amoureux and Le repondeur automatique rightly titillated the label enough to give him a 7" exposure outside of the library field.



Across the 80's, he cumulated commercial works, layering his arpegiators on a massive amount of highly dispensable french tv anthems (X-or, Mask, les Petites canailles) or soundtracks (La Balance). Even a single for Marie Dauphin (Y'en a qui).




Henriette Coulouvrat - Rockin on the red book

Now get ready and spread the word: the syldavesque madame Henriette, for whom Bocquet composed killer hits, is back. And her last month's live appearance in Paris announces more events to come. We all know how much this kind of comeback on stage is risky and rarely works for people with such a fabled profile: this is why we got struck to almost surprisingly shiver and dance on a performance that brilliantly honoured all together the sound (no shitty remixes but pure vintage backing tracks), the voice and the crazyness. We clapped, she laughed. Ha ha ha hi hi.

Stiroes of disck and essas

Hoistires de tibes et d'ulcs - L'accident


Hoistires de tibes et d'ulcs - Si


Hoistires de tibes et d'ulcs - Les menus travaux

This is the kind of item that can't even be considered rare. Easy to find, it simply remains under the collector's radar because of its vague junk aura. But it's way more than another collection of these bawdy songs french people excell into: well-composed and written, this anonymous bunch of sexually explicit songs save themselves from the expected vulgarity with an original piano / organ drum machine combo layered on classy lyrics. Classy, well, as much as can be.

No label, few credits, ... At most three aliases, "Mac Fornick" being the most notable. A surprising graphomania seems to be the only clue we have regarding the man, acccording to the unusual amount of "signed copies" avalaible online. Even less infos regarding the mysterious"G.Crisland", and we will also never know if this J.dupont credited has anything to do with the one who commited La danse des pompiers ... Men fade away, talent remains.

La femme publique

Alain Wisniak - Au Studio


Alain Wisniak - La femme publique (Générique début)

While this opus by polish director Andrzej Zulawski is still in the memories (wether to acclaim Kaprisky's naked dances and borderline actor's performances or to bitch on the overall general hysteria), its soundtrack didn't draw the appropriate attention, if you consider the killer qualities of some of its synthetic elements.



As a fundamental disco producer, Wisniak is especially known as Cerrone's sidekick (a collaboration that would later become seriously conflictual due to alleged Cerrone's wish to exclude him from credits). But he's also representative of those ghost producers responsible for countless interesting productions, in his case from Chi-Chi Favelas and the black & white band to Régine's incursions in the genre. His works for soundtracks include l'Année des méduses, the second major success Kaprisky got recognized for. Possibly could we also mention his work on the score of "Joy" (sounding sometimes so much like Quincy Jones is both embarassing and impressive at the same time).




Alain Wisniak - JOY Ost - New York

Rest in piece, Rosy Varte, who just passed away while this post was about to be written. None of us will ever be able to get out of his head this Wisniak opening theme for your TV show that grandma used to love so much.

Reboot / jingle bells

Patrick Duperray - Indicatif


Patrick Duperray - Jingles


Patrick Duperray - Message

Nothing is better than a little jingle to break an embarassing silence and get off on the right foot.

Would you mention the recent lack of activity obeserved here that we would incriminate various elements: not only that the next Cartilage records release is on its way, but also that we've been asked for a few huge time-eaters written contributions by some french magazines, among various other things. Meanwhile, a few of our guest contributors moved to more specialised realms, but our root team is back on the tracks, with enough fuel in the tank to gently warm up those january days of domestic hibernation.

Marre marre marre

Journal intime - Marre marre marre

Another french synthpop one shot from the band Journal Intime, which drum machine and mono bassline reminds us of other typical tunes such as Bisou's one. One of the band members, Dominique Rousseau, can be tracked down as a producer of either Michel Legrand's Disco Magic Concorde or the furry hit single Kiki Spatial. Moreover, he was also the one in charge of the 1979 disco-funk soundtrack of Les Givrés, one of these comedies that cement our national pride, challenger of the other classic reference in the field of winter sports' gag released exactly the same year: Les Bronzés font du ski.




Les Givrés - Nathalie's theme

One shot in a wave

Banann Panthair - Qui n'a pas son p'tit Klaus

Pure product from the 80s in France, the ambitiousness that you can feel in the few words spread across press reviews by these five french boys from Lyon attests that they had moving dreams, huge ones. Just born and already overtaken by some tragic circumstances (death of one of its members), Banann Panthair had enough time to prove to Paris that they were worth it (live at Gibus), but despite all their efforts didn't manage to give a little brother to their only 7" and its typically misty hit: a sour item that now belongs to the archives of french coldwave.

Les héroïnes du mal

Les héroïnes du mal - Le Chien

Another example of mink-lined 7inch: frustrated by the chamber orchestra main theme ? Turn it to get a surprisingly synthetic B-side that will cuddle your ears. From polish director Walerian Borowczyk, these Immoral Women belong to the list of now classic erotic french oddities.



A few names from the casting might sound more or less familiar to you: on the woman's side Gaëlle Legrand and Pascale Christophe, on the men's one Jean-Claude "What a flash" Dreyfus or the institutionnal Henri Piegay (a name we met a few days ago here regarding another 7")



Real life being sometimes more crazily creative and unexpectable than fiction, you'll find as co-composer the now right-wing deputee, air pilot, photograph and musician Olivier Dassault: a surrealistic profile that makes him the most unexpectable member of a Dassault lineage I will let to your appreciation ... You might also note that he's actually responsible for a countless amount of sonic signatures he composed across the years for clients such as Le Futuroscope, Institut du Monde Arabe, Tati or Vulcania, among many others ...




Philippe D'Aram - Le suicide

Besides, the movie also involves some people related to Jean Rollin, like actress Marina Pierro (La Morte Vivante) and soundtrack composer Philippe D'Aram, in charge of the score for Les deux orphelines vampires, Fascination, La Morte Vivante and Perdues dans New York, all recently reissued by Crippled Dick Hot Wax and Lucertola media.



Back to our movie director, Borowczyk in his early years also acquired recognition with his experimental animation movies: here an interesting example alongside Chris Marker, which soundtrack by polish contemporary composer Andrzej Markowski challenges many experiments of the french GRM at the time.

Morbido Music

The Dreams – Aloha Miami

Dans la foulée du Lp sorti en juillet dernier chez les américains Kill Shaman, THE DREAMS seront en concert ce soir (+ Delacave & Le Chomâge): reggae night/tropicalia degueu/induswave !



... pour les snobs il y a aussi une version cassette (Yerevan Tapes).



Plus d'infos:

La Mécanique Ondulatoire
8, Passage Thiéré
75011 Paris
M. Bastille
5€ / 20h30

> http://grandetripleallianceinternationalest.blogspot.com/

French heat #2

Bernard Gérard et Jacques Datin - Fait chaud

This is what I call "appropriate":


Under one of the most brilliant artwork ever seen among the dusty piles of french 7" production, you'll find a gently rascal easy-listening tune setup by a very specific team of people at the time:

Co-composer Bernard Gerard (with Jacques Datin) was a specialist in writing scores for various french movies (Melville, Lautner, as well as one of Michel Magne's favorite fellows and arrangers. Besides, Anne Germain who sings the soft background vocal, sang on some of the Magne soundtracks for Jean Yanne (see the well-known Jesus Java), often written or co-composed by her husband Claude Germain.
She also got involved in the production of dozens of flexible commercial 7" intented at the time for advertisement.

Finally, let's say that the charming dialog here involves french actor Henri Piegay alongside Dany Danielle, who strangely seems to have a kind of specialisation regarding weather and season songs.

Casse-tête jungle

Les espions - Casse-tête jungle

Among the members of that not-so-usual french synth-pop band, you will find Daniel Chevenez, future half of Niagara (who also produced les Calamités, among various other things), for what happens to be their only 7"release from 1981.

Infos are scarce on the band and its other mysterious members so we'll simply extract here the sweet mesmerizing B-side and also will notice that Pierre-René Worms, in charge of the cover portrait, is well-known for his experience as a photographer who shot the eclosion of new wave in France at the time.

Raymond Lefévre 1929 - 27/06/2008

As a a pianist, arranger and composer in a french kind of easy listening field, Raymond Lefevre is especially famous for his scores dedicated to several films starring Louis de Funès, especially in the series of "Gendarme" with the unforgettable: Douliou, Douliou, Saint-Tropez (in "Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez") or "La soupe aux choux", "Faites sauter la banque","Les Grandes Vacances", or "Jo".

Raymond did not think some of his compositions would become so popular, but he became very famous in Japan (where he was rewarded with golden records) but also in Germany and in many other countries.

As he composed a lot for comedies, he suffered from a "light music" label. However, just listening to his scores will lead you to appreciate the melodic direction, accuracy and efficiency of his orchestrations alongside an immoderate taste for speed.




Stéphanie/indicatif de la rose d'or 1970 (V.Papathanassiou/arrangt R. Lefevre)


5th symphony (Beethoven/arrangt R. Lefevre)


C'est la fête (M.Fugain/arrangt R. Lefevre)

All the scores for the films of Louis de Funès, PlayTime were reissued on CD's as still findable limited editions. The French 7' is impossible to find, though, so here is the japanese copy !




Douliou-Douliou Saint-Tropez (Geneviève Grad/Raymond Lefèvre)


And here comes the poster for the film, a classic Sunday night on TF1:




le gendarme pop (Raymond Lefévre)

Bonus:
Finally, here you'l find a big dirty REMIX music by Raymond for "The cabbage soup. " Gabber too!

Affaires étrangères

Electropic - Affaires étrangères

A back from the grave extract from this 1982 french synthpop LP following a first 1980 7"appearance (with a cover of La Belle de Cadix).

Produced by a Berlow / Liberman tandem (who later both moved to the world of major music business), it features the mysterious "Lise" and her BB style vocals + a consequent collection of synths provided by a credited shopkeeper that lead them all to some fields familiar with Telex or Mikado. As you'll notice from the pic, expect a general comedy abuse, but, like this Affaires Etrangères tune, record has its very good moments.

Far-east approximations #1

P.A.O.L.A - Yokohama

There was a time, following WWII, when japan was still for many french people synonymous of an unaccessible question mark. For many of the nowadays geeks evolving in an instant globalized world, fascinating may be these years of careful approximation, paved with pitfalls and naïve misunderstandings: pure product of that context, this Yokohama obsessive hit is a perfect audio pendant to movies such as Typhon sur Nagasaki or Rififi à Tokyo (maybe not major masterpieces, but an interesting testimony for those who do care about that specific western / eastern encounter age). An uncomfortable and ambigüous INA document refers to Danielle Darieux's experience in that country during the Typhon movie's shooting in the 50's, in which she appears both fascinated and bitterly annoyed as a woman (also very unpurposefully yet slightly condescending with her japanese co-actress Kishi Keiko).



More generally, other far-east countries had a quite similar statu in the french collective unconscious, despite a different colonial situation. As already mentionned by Choron, one of the only way for common people to travel and see Indochine in the 50s - before mass-tourism arises - was, insanely, to military engage. Or to get one of these musical postcards intended to help the listener to travel, let's say, in a less butcher way...




Henri Génès - Le Cornak de Bangkok

Introducing the "Cornak de Bangkok" song during one of his concerts in Bobino, the sweet Henri Génès described it as "a song I brought back from India... where I almost managed to go". Bangkok being located in Thaïland, this gives you a certain idea of the lyricist's level of approximation...

Colo(de)nial #1

Bill Wichita - Oh missié blanc

Behind the obscure "Bill Wichita orchestra", you will find producer Maurice Tézé (aso responsible for the lyrics of Henri Salvador's Juanita Banana) and Gérard Gustin, both active in the 60s, also especially for people like Sascha Distel.

A highly controversial track, layering its caricatural cannibal lyrics on an exotica fuzzy instrumental, that gives us the opportunity to reopen an uncomfortable specific dark folder in the library of french chanson production. Through the years, indeed, the country developped a collection of silly visions towards what was at the time the colonial world and its inhabitants: a wide range of songs, sometimes simply based on a bunch of exotic clichés, but also sometimes more openly offensive. You know, "oh, the funny black people ..."

















Although link may be obvious with the blackface practice, this tune also has to do with a countless amount of typically french gauloiseries that could be grouped under the Michel Leeb banneer. It includes, in no particular order: open odes to sex tourism, pathetic couscous song attempts (including Gotainer's advertisement), a unique example of 8bit racism, that was shamelessly broadcasted on the N°1 tv channel during the late 80s (accent imitation attempt + mix of djellabas and guys cleaning dustbins + of course the scooter in the story was stolen). Oh, and obviously him, our most unbearable uninhibited specimen.

On another level, there is also a controversy going on regarding the children's song Mamadou avait mal aux dents, in this case typically representative of an ambiguity that nobody will ever probably be able to solve: basically, according to lyrics, Mamadou has bad teeth, has lice, has no shoes and is fat. What a vision. But people who give him advice are actually his parents. Not Michel Leeb. Mamadou transforms the adult's wise advices into surrealistic things (toothpaste on bread, marmelade on his shoes). He might be seen as nuts yet creative in the rebellious way that makes children love him. Reports have been made that some children named Mamadou also love this song. Others have been persecuted. Please, comment.



You might also check that commercial production, trying with full force to transform a highly criticized advertisement character into a positive heroïc figure (according to the lyrics), in a desperate attempt to hide the company's original mistake.



Also, let's recommend a detailed article related to the release and distribution of the compilation "le beau temps des colonies", angry with reasons, but also concluding that the topic might be a good opportunity to "launch a socio-cultural work in anthropology applied to the imperial gesture".