FFWD Weekly - April 14, 2005

The French pop scene went through a crisis a few years back, the victim not of too few new ideas, but too many. And, as always seems to happen in these situations, what emerged from the confusion was a conservative backlash, epitomized by Benjamin Biolay.

True, Biolay didn’t invent French retro – Philippe Katerine had been trying to do it for years before Dominique A got it right with La Memoire Neuve in 1995, and currently its most charming proponent is Vincent Delerm. But it’s Biolay who has really made a career of recycling the French sounds of the ’60s, both under his own name and as songwriter for a range of chanteuses, from his sister Coralie Clement to Francoise Hardy.

A little ahead of its time, Salle des Pas Perdus, Clement’s Biolay-penned 2001 debut, was a commercial failure in France, but did well in Japan and North America precisely because it epitomized a classic French style of quiet jazz-pop.

Bye Bye Beauté is aimed more at the French market and though it has two sublime quiet moments, "Gloria" and "Beau Fixe," its sound is closer to the current French mainstream, louder but not exactly harder. Most tracks feature ’60s electric guitars and faster tempos, yet Clement’s vocals are still more whispered than sung.

Again, Biolay dominates the production, writing the majority of the songs. But I get the feeling that this year he may have kept the best for himself, first for Home, his collaboration with his wife Chiara, and then for two solo albums, a soundtrack released last autumn and a new CD announced for the end of this month in France.

Home is clearly where his heart is and this collection of duets about the domestic bliss and torture of married life is easily his best work to date – varied in tone, but consistently light, catchy and entertaining.

Both albums, however, are sung entirely in French (no translations given, even in Clement’s domestic release), so, though the texts are not particularly dense by French standards, Anglophone listeners may miss out on a lot of what’s going on. (For example, Clement’s "Jeu Du Foulard" is heavy with references to the recent controversial banning of headscarves in French schools.)

Keren Ann Zeidel, who made her name in France with three albums co-written by Biolay, here stands on her own two feet, but rather shakily. Her previous discography saw her move from a bland (but immensely successful) mainstream pop debut to a follow-up with subtle electronics, then being reborn in acoustic mode as the new Francoise Hardy on 2003’s haunting Not Going Anywhere.

Nolita repeats Anywhere’s delicately acoustic sound, with titles again evenly divided between English and French, but it’s obvious that she’s recycling more than the outer form – the new tunes are strikingly similar to the old, and awkward when they occasionally try something new. Still, the previous album was so good that a repeat performance is quite acceptable.

So, while these three albums have an unexpected coherence and are representative of at least one aspect of the current French scene, they are far from being the best of the more interesting that that country can offer. That can be found in post-jazz, glitch-pop and the more intellectual side of the Nouvelle Chanson Française.

CORALIE CLEMENT 3/5

BIOLAY & MASTROIANI 4/5

KEREN ANN 2/5

TIMOTHY HECK