Disques de l'Année Francophone 2014

I thought long and hard as to whether to combine both English and French albums of the year into one longish - for my incredibly short attention span -  Top 20, or a hellishly difficult Top 10. But would I try and include five each (in which case did I risk a compromise) or end up with a list that was so heavily influenced by one particular language as to render any list totally biased?

And then I was drawn to an article in the French-Canadian blog "L'Animateur Culturel!" that touched on the whole debate of what actually constituted a "French" song. Unsurprisingly identifying that French music is purely only French because it's sung in the language of Molière, the article went on to bemoan the English-language press' attempt to pigeon-hole French music as a particular genre. Thus it seemed obvious to keep both lists separate - to celebrate both the best of English and French song.

However, this didn't actually make the task that much easier, since the one thing which has to be said about this year's Francophone releases is that the quality was second to none - 2014 truly was a great year for Le Chanson Française...

Magdalen "En vers et contre tout"

The debut album from this young Strasbourg-based singer-songwriter was a veritable breath of fresh air. An intriguing and multi-faceted album, it weaved together electro-pop, electronica and hip-hop beats alongside indie and acoustic pop. The album's title "En vers et contre tout" can be considered a play on the phrase "envers et contre tout" ("against all odds") - translated into English it becomes "In verse and against all", which is very apt; while intimate and feminine the theme was undoubtedly feminist, Magdalen not being afraid to confront macho culture and sexism ("Demi-molle" and "Pas dans ma bouche" both tackled these subjects head-on). But the album wasn't all angst, "Faveur d'exception" was simply a beautiful love song with the most outstanding of choruses.

Ultimately "En vers et contre tout" was a very personal album and one crafted without compromise... An album of chansons in the truest sense. The lyrics - paroles - and Magdalen's transfixing vocals were the focal point throughout this impressive collection of songs.

Fanny Bloom "Pan"

 

 For a while Fanny Grosjean had us worried. Firstly there was her collaboration with Montréal rappers Loud Lary Ajust (who are, it has to be said - bizarrely - quite popular) and then - released totally out of context - the single "Piscine". The fact that this latter song went on to become this summer's Québécois anthem just goes to show how little I know about popular music!

However, with "Pan" Fanny Bloom ensured there would be no sophomore blues, as she dipped in and out of recent(ish) pop history to create a totally irresistible and unashamed pop album, from dance-floor fillers ("Danse", the aforementioned "Piscine" and "Évidemment" - resplendent with synths, bright brass and piano), timeless pop songs and heart-moving and incredible personal ballads. However, the album's crowning moment had to be "Drama queens" (in memory of author Vickie Gendreau who tragically died of a brain tumour aged just 24), a dark and deeply moving masterpiece.

While a totally different projet to the critically acclaimed "Apprentie guerrière", "Pan" demonstrated the immense talent that is Fanny Bloom.

Catherine Leduc "Rookie"

Better known for being the female half of acclaimed Canadian folk-pop duo Tricot Machine, "Rookie", the debut solo ouevre from singer-songwriter Catherine Leduc introduced us to a sound that was far removed from the frothy, bouncy - cute - piano-based pop that we had come to expect. In its place was an album packed full of incredibly dreamy, melancholic and atmospheric tunes - indeed on an album of such high quality it was incredibly difficult to pick a stand-out track. There was the haunting “Les vieu hiboux” - with polysynth owls swooping through midnight forests; the glockenspiel and overdubbed angelic choruses of "Polatouche”; the sublime and beautifully constructed “Vendredi Saint” - with its solo acoustic guitar accompanying incredibly resonant lyrics that would surely melt the iciest of hearts. And then there was the album's closing number “Ouvre ton coeur!” It was vibrant, soaring - imploring - with a majestic chorus and uptempo hook that left me yearning for more...

With "Rookie", Catherine Leduc created a truly gorgeous and outstanding album  - metaphors that I tend to bandy around quite freely - but in this case justified...

Grenadine "Grenadine"

Julie Brunet's (Grenadine) eponymous debut album (confusingly the album has the same name as 2012's EP) was an album full of timeless pop songs that had a refreshing ability to span the ages - which drew as much on the les années soixante as the sounds of today. Thus you have songs such as  "Bonjour tristesse" (with it's nod towards the novelist Françoise Sagan) and "Je veux, je veux" (which could almost be a cover of a France Gall song - it wasn't), sitting next to "Amours microscopiques" (with it's gorgeous reverbed indie chord progressions); the infectious "Marion" and the addictive piano chord progression of "Ô toi".

Grenadine song's often revolve around themes of love and relationships, but more often than not it was from the perspective of failing - this may be a contemporary pop-album - but saccharin sweet it was not, and while she may hail from Québec (thus the country-tinged "Petits mensonges" and "Oublie-la"), her musical sensibilities appeared fixed towards the East and Francophone Europe.

So the question is just how good was this album? Well I don't tend to blog about (or buy) music that hasn't been released here in the United States (purely a financial - cut my nose off to spite my face - sort of thing really). However, when the album was this good - and it was arguably as good a pop album as was released all year - it seemed rather churlish not to buy it...

Les Hay Babies "Mon Homesick Heart"

If there was an award for the record that leaves me with a smile on my face every time I listen to it, I suspect that it would be a toss-up between Lisa LeBlanc's "Highways, Heartaches and Time Well Wasted" EP and this, the immensely enjoyable debut from her fellow New (Nouveau) Brunswick banjo-twanging, ukulele-strummin', Chiac-parlezing, cowpunking compatriots - Julie Aubé, Katrine Noël and Vivianne Roy - better known as Les Hay Babies.

This album delivered a faultless selection of Acadian-tinged country-folk songs, charming, plaintive ballads and Cowpunk-infused indie-pop - all wrapped up in Acadian-French and Chiac (an at times confusing mix of Franglais and Fringlish) - from the thigh-slapping sing-along-chorus of “Fil de téléphone (so reminiscent of the UK's Cowpunk scene that all that was missing was the wash-board); slower ballads that offered a contrast in styles, the melancholic "La toune du Soundman", "Me reconnais-tu" and haunting "N’importe quel gars". However, the stand-out song was undoubtedly the reflective "Néguac and back", with it's references to the towns of New Brunswick (Dieppe, Paqueteville and the Néguac of the title). The lyrics bemoaned the relentless urbanization of the region and subsequent loss of community and it's hard not to listen to this song without wiping a tear away from the corner of you eye.

"Mon Homesick Heart" was an incredibly polished performance - yet still captured the band's natural warmth and enthusiasm - and which confirmed the talent that the trio showed on their earlier "Folio EP" - I'm off to buy an Acadian-to-English phrasebook. Any recommendations?  

Chloé Lacasse "LUNES"

The oh so difficult sophomore album? Au contraire... With ethereal yet crystalline vocals centre-stage, the clever  use of percussion - strings, keyboards, even an auto-harp - helped create a tranquil, trance-like and atmospheric sound that ensured that "LUNES" was destined to be one of the year's top albums.

Indeed, from the opening bars of the auto-harp that resonates throughout "Rien pour moi" - a deliciously troubling portrayal of an emotionally challenged relationship - there was a realisation that this was a quite special moment. Every song on this album demanded and deserved the up most attention (especially in the way that the narrative of "Rien pour moi" unfurled on "La générique").

There's something quite magical in the way that Chloé managed to create such expansive aural landscapes and moods with a deliberately sparsesound; has a song ostensibly about rebelling against the status-quo ("Renverser la vapeur") ever sounded so melodic? There was the wonderful uplifting and soaring chorus of  "Un oiseau dans la vitre"; the hypnotic grove and vocal rawness of "Le piège" (Chloé's "Disco//very" moment) and "Furnace Creek" - with just acoustic guitar, banjo and over-dubbed vocals managed to paint a canvas as expansive and desolate as the landscape the song portrayed.

"LUNES" was an album full of stand-out compositions and rightly announced the arrival of Chloé as one of the best auteures-compositrices-interprètes of her generation.

Salomé Leclerc "27 fois l'aurore"

The team at Filles Sourires quite rightly raved about this album. It is frankly quite impossible to understate how talented a singer-songwriter Salomé Leclerc is and her stunning sophomore offering, "27 fois l'aurore" amply demonstrated that the talent shown by the mature-beyond-her-years singer-songwriter on her debut album was no fluke.

The album was scarily consistent - it challenged you to identify with a particular mood or moment; The uplifting "Arlon", built on Salomé's tell-tale rasping, breathless vocals and, layered with heavily reverbed bass and electric guitar, helping to illuminate the image of a winter's night; the abso-bloody-lutely seductive analogue synths and loops on the hauntingly melodic  "L’icône du naufrage";  the incredibly cathartic "Le bon moment" - heavier, filled with drums and distorted, reverbed guitar.  But ultimately, like most great albums, the lyrics take on a very personal context, at times introverted, melancholy and on occasion wholly cathartic. Even when translated into English it was fairly obvious as to the poetry the words conveyed.

"27 Fois l'Aurore" was the perfect album for those long moments of reflective tranquillity; an album that - depending on my mood - could quite easily be my favourite...

Hôtel Morphée "Rêve Américain"

Hôtel Morphée are one of my favourite alt-rock bands and their debut album "Histoires des fantomes" deservedly featured in last year's francophone retrospective. This year they returned with a new album, that while still dark and brooding, revealed a more guitar-driven indie-rock sound. There was still that trademarked and liberal use of syncopated rhythms and orchestral strings, but this time around married to a distinctive rockier beat and with Laurence Nerbonne’s voice having a new-found distinctive rasping and at times sultry edge (thanks to the subtle use of Auto-Tune). The album explored the realities and myths of the American dream, walking the tightrope between reverie and nightmares; exploring themes of love ("Soigne-moi"), sex ("Petite mort") and violence ("Des milliers de gens") with the band expertly wrapped disconcerting lyrics around punchy rhythms - "Psycholove", a delectably noir love song for psychopaths and "Reve américain", sombre keyboards buried beneath distorted, pounding bass with Laurence ever so matter-of-fact addresses the dream "...that one was killed and that one was missing...

However, no review of this album is complete without mentioning “Dernier jour”, a dark and deliciously subversive thumping alt-rock tune that hinted at the disjoint between the dream (the "Rêve" of the album's title) and the cold, sobering light of reality; pounding drums and bass were overlaid with Laurence Newbornne’s gorgeous… This was without a doubt the song of the year.

Stéphanie Lapointe "Les amours parallèles

Montréalaise singer-actress-author and Unicef ambassador Stéphanie Lapointe released her last album back in 2009. This year she released “Les amours parallèles”, an album that manages to both immediately transport the listener back to les années soixante while at the same time brimming with such timeless quality that the songs here could have been written anytime over the past fifty years. Over ten intimate portraits she described the many facets of love in all its guises; good and bad, escape, forgiveness, loss, grief and desire; as if a brief moment in time had been captured and frozen for all eternity.

If there was an award for team or ensemble album of the year, then “Les amours parallèles” would be the undisputed winner. Already armed with a honey-dripped and mesmerising voice, Stéphanie surrounded herself amongst the crème of Québec’s song-writing and composing talent; Philippe B – winner of two Félix at this year’s ADISQ Gala; Jimmy Hunt – GAMIQ award winner and Polaris nominee; award winning poet Kim Doré alongside Émilie Laforest and Joseph Marchand of blog favourites, Forêt, who were also responsible for the album’s production.

From the opening number, the Philippe B composition, “L’oiseau mécanique”, with it’s poignant piano melody and Stéphanie’s voice softly floating above the clouds to the haunting resonance of the English horn on the closing “Nous revenons de loin”, this was an album of terrifying consistency.

The album felt very French – and while it’s not impossible to imagine this album being written and performed in (say) English – it resonated with “Frenchness” and the echoes of Françoise Hardy, France Gall and Jane Birkin (whose “Pourquoi” was lovingly reinterpreted); yet for an album that had a distinctly retro-sixties feel (indeed, even the album artwork harked back to the period), there’s only one song, “Un jour comme un autre”, that actually came from that era. Originally performed by Brigitte Bardot on her 1964 album “BB”, here the nuances of Stéphanie’s voice perfectly captured the feeling of resignation and despair.

In any other year this would more than likely have been album of the year...

La Féline "Adieu l'enfance"

So I'd already outlined my top ten Francophone albums of the year, selected my choice for Guuz's Filles Sourires and was tidying up a handful of posts for inclusion in the blog (as a sort of 'some that got away' featurette) when, listening to this album, I realised that not only was it too good an album not to feature this year, but the more that I listened so the nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me that this was the obvious choice for my Francophone album of the year.

La Féline is a project of the Paris-based singer-songwriter Agnès Gayraud and "Adieu l'enfance" was the most intoxicating mix of eighties-influenced dreamy electronic synth-pop, guitar-tinged indie-pop - all mixed with spell-binding vocals - and was arguably the most stunning of examples of how great music can transcend language barriers...

The whole raison d'être of the album was encapsulated by the song "Moderne"; melancholic and thoughtful, a manifesto to the belief that 'new' is in fact 'old' and newness is just a reinvention of the past. (Agnès touches upon the idea of 'modern is old' in the pages of her fascinating blog "Moderne, c'est déjà vieux" ("Modern it's Already Old").

There was some seriously wonderful synth-pop on display here; "Les fashionistes (au loin)", outwardly a wry observation on the 'sameness' of the fashion police but actually that of the world viewed from the perception of the alienated outsider. The song's hypnotic beat and Agnès' breathless vocal style created a compelling soundtrack of a disturbingly dystopian landscape. "La ligne d’horizon" featured the most dreamy synth pop rhythms - complete with a haunting trumpet refrain with a touch of cello that added extra depth and poignancy to the coda; The album's title track kicked- off with looped-vocals and the most gorgeous of synth-pop rhythms. The vocals were breathless - spellbinding - the chorus is uplifting - a song that does not so much regret the passing of a childhood moment as rejoice; "Zone", with the must exhilarating - pounding - industrial synth soundtrack, that about half-way through seamlessly transformed into an indie-rock song.

As I've may have mentioned previously, I do have a weakness for both indie and synth-pop and with this album I indulged both vices, the play between the electro-pop and more traditional indie and alt-rock was masterful... There was "Midnight", a song that wouldn't have sounded out of place on The Cure's "Seventeen Seconds"; the beguiling a cappella "Rêve de Verre", a resplendent multi-dubbed choir and a hymn to the loss of innocence and "La fumée dans le ciel" complete with gorgeous vibrato guitar transported me back to the sixties ('retromania' as Agnès might say?) - the overall effect created a succession of timeless song which expertly blended the familiar with the yet to be discovered.

Frankly, the more I think about it - I ended up listening in awe to this album and thus - quite correctly - "Adieu l'enfance" is this bog's deserved Album de l'Année Francophone 'Deux Mille Quartorze'...