Coeur de pirate "Trauma"

As I previously blogged, Béatrice Martin's eagerly awaited new Coeur de pirate album - and her first in English - was released last week. The album, entitled "Trauma: Chansons de la série télé (Saison No. 5)" - and as can be deduced from the title - provides the soundtrack to the 5th series of the Radio Canada TV hospital drama. The album follows the series' trend of asking Canadian artists to interpret songs from across the other side of the cultural and language divide (which begs the question: is there a Canadian equivalent to the Swiss "Röstigraben"?) to accompany the show...

Releasing ostensibly what is a covers album and tying the concept into a TV series is a tough ask. Firstly, there's the risk of unfavourable comparison with the original (or indeed an existing cover); Secondly, since this is a soundtrack album, there's - on paper anyway - an additional handicap due to the accompanying images not being available (although in hindsight this isn't an issue - in fact, I'm too busy running my own mental images as I listen to the tracks to worry...)

And if that wasn't hard enough... all the songs are sung English...  

So firstly, lets dispel the "Covers" notion. This is an album of beautifully arranged interpretations - every song has been stripped back, adapted, molded, indeed structured to Béatrice's trademark vocal and compositional style - while all the time remaining faithful to the spirit of the original...

As soon as I saw the track listing I was really intrigued by how she would treat Amy Winehouse's "You know I'm no good", and The Libertines' "Music when the lights go out."

I remember seeing Amy Winehouse on Jools Holland's "Later" on the BBC and just being knocked-out by her energy and voice (I'm guessing a bit like how I felt when I first heard CdP), so covering the song which so encapsulated Amy's self-destructive streak was a huge, huge challenge... But as I wrote, I'd been blown away by her interpretation as Béatrice transformed the song from a jazzy, R&B fuelled mix of both anger and self-pity into a reflective, forlorn - utterly heart-breakingly sad - lament...

And I sort of have a love-hate relationship with The Libertines - it's frustrating - as someone who doesn't have a drop of musical talent coursing through his veins - to see someone as gifted as Pete Doherty piss it all away... But I've always loved this song. I love the ambiguity - It's most definitely a remorseful song, a reflective look back at the aftermath of a break-up - but is it all about a girl or in fact the crumbling relationship between band members Carl Barât and Doherty? But for now what I love is what Béatrice has done here. It's not that radically different - the melody is still there, but there's a simple layering of acoustic guitar, piano and plaintive vocals that is arguably closer to the remorseful nature of the original than the Libertines shambling style ever could achieve... What should have been an incredibly difficult song to tackle is possibly the album's strongest song.

And as this is a soundtrack album, lets take Bill Withers' "Ain't no sunshine" and superimpose the image of Hugh Grant desolately wandering the streets of Notting Hill just after he's turned down Julia Roberts (we Brits really are a strange bunch) as summer turns to autumn, turns to winter, turns to... I'm guessing those same seasons would be passing now... except with Béatrice's version - beautifully sparse with hypnotically breathless vocals all counterpoised with deliberately harsh percussion - we're trudging through Arctic tundra... and we're not wearing a parka...    

Of course, one of the great delights of an album like this is hearing some  songs for the first time - and so with apologies to readers North of the 49th - and Patrick Watson's "The great escape" and Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "Heartbeats accelerating" both fall into this category. The former is all lilting acoustic guitar and just a touch of reverb and overdubbing on the vocals; the latter a folk-tinged number, again a simple guitar accompaniment to those mesmerising vocals with an undercurrent of uncertainty that is noticeable in the McGarrigle sisters' original (and which is totally airbrushed out of Linda Ronstadt's high-fructose corn-syrup cover... and I say this who owns a couple of Ronstadt's albums...) 

I'm not going to claim I'm some kind of musical encyclopaedia, that I was immediately aware of every nuance of the original compositions -  but I've listened to every song on this album repeatably (Radio Canada's Espace.mu and CBC were streaming the album in advance of release - indeed CBC have a track-by-track guide from Coeur de pirate herself) - and I've then gone and dug out the originals on YouTube - but frankly, every song on this album is a veritable tour de force, upon which Béatrice Martin has breathed new life and stamped her own credentials.

Lee Hazelwood's "Summer wine" - which is so obviously written as a duet (most famously performed with Nancy Sinatra) - just so works as a solo number - Béatrice handling both vocals parts effortlessly... 

Even Kenny Roger's "Lucille" - a song I hate with a passion that is usually reserved for the bog dwellers up the A1 (in-part due to my parent's misguided belief that somehow Country music was supposed to sound like this - WTF!?!) - is - with just the piano accompanying Béatrice's voice and stripped of it's faux-Country pathos - restored to the sad narrative it should have always have been... 
 

There are some great deft touches that permeate throughout this album... The National's "Slow show" is now all piano and haunting strings; Her take on Wayne Cochran's 60's teen ballad "Last kiss" is much closer to the original's roots than Pearl Jam's abomination (why is it that "Rawk" bands feel the need to churn out a power ballad?) - it's an incredibly sad song made even more poignant...

I could go on - but there are times when you just have to listen to the music - and it really doesn't matter whether you've heard the songs before or not. Just treat the album as I expect it was intended... A beautiful homage to an eclectic collection of songs from the past fifty years...

I'm guessing the next time I see Coeur de pirate in concert she may well pause and apologise, "Désolé, mais les chansons sont en anglais, blagues en français..."