Customer Reviews

Vingt a Trente Mille Jours

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Francoiz Breut's music in firmly rooted the stylish 1960s French pop tradition of Serge Gainsbourg and Francois Hardy. The music is composed and arranged by her partner Dominique A, but it is Francoiz's icy vocal presence floating above the voluptous sting arrangements that seduce even the most jaded listeners. Cherbourg native Francoiz Breut has the mysterious aura of the beautiful Gallic muse in the tradition of Jeanne Moreau or Juliette Binoche. Her elulsive personna is as much what she is not; as what she is...Or as Nico so aptly put it,"I am your mirror"; a paradoxical reflection of both desire and detachment. Her vocals are at once; deeply wounded, intimately playful and breathlessly passionate. The eccentric retro-jazz arrangements with a cornicopia of fuzz box guitars, finger snapping snare drum pops, sweeping violins, and bubblegum beatnick posturing are icing on the cake. Take one part Nico, one part Beth Gibbons (Potishead) and one part Marianne Faithfull, and mix it with Lee Greenwood/Nancy Sinatra's "One Velvet Morning" and sift it with Brian Wilson's "Pet Sounds" and Voila!... you have "Vignt a Trente Mille Jours" (translated as "Twenty to Thirty Thousand Days") by Francoiz Breut and Dominque A. Recommended for after-hours liasons, sunny or rainy spring afternoons, or as ambient music on the boulevard of broken dreams.

While it is probably true that gloom and ennui, like love, sound better in French (Think Billy Holiday's 'Songs for Distingue Lovers'), Francoiz Breut would move even in translation. Although less startling than her debut, Ms Breut and partner/collaborateur Dominique Ane still get the cool poise and weltschmerz (damn, that's German) just right on this beautiful, though wintry album. The usual comparisons are with Nico, Mazzy Star and Catpower - and think of these singing a Francoise Sagan novel to music by the live and symphonic Portishead and we are close to a description, but not a definition.

The title track is particularly striking in the infinite weariness - and wary lack of sentiment - evoked by Ms Breut's phrasing, as does the opening, the beautiful 'Derriere le grand filtre', dominated by acoustic guitars and, later, strings, all reminiscent of the first Cohen album, though its worldview is more like that of his 'Songs and Love and Hate'. This song ironically ends with sampled folk music - a contrapuntal sign of an optimism the persona lacks. 'L'Affaire d'un Jour' is Cowboy Junkies - but on better junk - Brigitte Fontaine as Country and Western singer. Beautiful in a low pained bored way - as dark and sexy as suicide in the Seine, the album is really only let down a little on the one English track - a cover of Peggy Lee's 'Sans Souci' - in which the poise becomes pose.

Breathy and brooding, this artist forces the question : why aren't more people speaking about her ? Like Lo Galuccio, An Pierle and Catpower, Francoiz Breut seems to be a little below the radar of Pop culture. Perhaps this is because of innate Anglo-American chauvinism in this case. Perhaps it is because people are stupid.

This shares much of the same brooding grace as her first album from 1996 that endeared France's most downcast mademoiselle to listeners across the world. Produced once again by Dominique A, Francois Breut has also enlisted many of France's most illustrious indiepoppers, including folks such as Phillipe Katarine and members of Autour de Lucie. The result is a lighter-sounding album which sheds the murky, mystical gravity of her earlier Tom Waits-y leanings in favor of a muted, slightly xylophonic orchestral pop, ala Tindersticks. Although not as immediately spooky as her first album, this is still powerful and poetic, and will hopefully will draw even more listeners into her orbit. Also highly recommended.