Thursday 11 August 2011

Rétro: Elli et Jacno - Je t'aime Tant


Following on from last week's clip of Stinky Toys, a clip of Elli at Jacno from their career as a duo in the 1980s.

Their sound on this song was a far more techno pop one than their earlier new wave/punk work with Stinky Toys, but their adopting a keyboard-dominated sound was an obvious continuation of their forward-looking attitude.

Jacno had been inspired by Kraftwerk, and prior to working as half of Elli et Jacno had released a minimalists electro EP Rectangle, which had met with some critical success, which after the commercial and critical failure of Stinky Toys must have seemed like a step in the right direction. One song on the EP featured vocals by Elli, so the decision to continue the collaboration seemed to be an obvious one.

The duo is similar in some ways to the electro duos of the 80s that were hugely popular in the UK, from Soft Cell to the Pet Shop Boys. Elli et Jacno never enjoyed the same mainstream success in the UK that these other acts did, although they did make the front of one of the UK's music magazines at the time.

The electro pop genre was probably guilty of marginalising the female vocalist and while the Human League did feature their female backing singers heavily, only really Yazoo made the most of a female singer. Elli's vocals may not be comparable to Alison Moyet, but she does do a very good line in a and stylish cool vocal.

Elli et Jacno took the pop sound of 60s France and updated it for the new decade, and came up with some great songs along the way and this is certainly one of them.

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