Johnny Hallyday: Deux sortes d'hommes

 A new release by Johnny Hallyday on the horizon, with a box set entitled Son rêve américain the latest posthumous release continuing his legacy.

With two significant studio albums and a number of live releases, he's done well to keep up his release schedule despite no longer being with us since 2017. The Mon pays c'est l'amour and Johnny releases were massive sellers, confirming that the demand for new product - particularly in the run-up to Christmas - remains undiminished. 

Son rêve américain differs from other releases in that it is a box set, featuring two films, one chronicling his motorcycle road trip in 2016, and another documenting his US live dates. Three CDs present a live gig from New York in 2014, and the soundtrack for the films, including an unreleased track Deux sortes d'hommes, released as a single ahead of the package.

Deux sortes d'hommes was a blues rocker originally recorded for his 2014 Rester Vivant album, but dropped before release. The video is nicely put together montage of Hallyday archive footage, from the 60s to more recent years, and shots from his road trip.

It's as strong as much of his later material. While not exactly covering much new ground, it plays to his strengths and doesn't sound like a below-par offcut. It does raise the question of how much unreleased material there actually is in the Hallyday vault, as this collection is essentially just another live release with an almost homeopathic level of actual unreleased studio material. 

In the motorcycle footage, Hallyday could easily pass for any elderly biker and would probably not get a second glance from anyone else on the road. 

For all his love of America, and his years living there, Hallyday was never as big a name there as he was in France. Perhaps the anonymity that gave him is one of the reasons he liked it. 

We Love Green 2021

It's great to have some good news. 

After all the cancellations, most recently the MAMA event in Paris, a confirmation that one of next year's major music festivals is taking place, and with a special act confirmed for the opening night.

Gorillaz are to headline Thursday June 3, with a set described as a mini-festival within the festival, featuring Damon Albarn and a host of special guests.

Gorillaz new album Song Machine is released later this month, with the song The Pink Phantom already arrived, featuring a collaboration with Elton John and 6lack. The album includes contributions from Peter Hook, Robert Smith, St Vincent and Skepta.

Whether any of these guests - or guests from their previous albums - appear at the show remains to be seen, but what's certain is that Gorillaz will be putting on the kind of unforgettable multimedia performance that never fails to astonish.

It's the event's tenth anniversary. The festival, held at the Bois de Vincennes, fell victim to Covid-19 cancellation earlier this year. Recent years have seen performances by Christine and the Queens, Tame Impala, Booba, Orelsan and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

We Love Green takes place on June 3- June 6 next year. More details of the other acts on the bill, as well as prices and when tickets will be available, will be released shortly,

Carpenter Brut: Release Party

A great opportunity to catch a live performance by the mighty Carpenter Brut thanks to the good people at Arte.

Our favourite purveyors of 80s horror soundtrack electro-rock star in a performance at an American high school gig we all wish we were at some time in the early 90s.

Carpenter Brut recently released their soundtrack for Blood Machine, a 50-minute SF film collaboration between the band and director Seth Ickerman that follows up their Turbo Killer music video.

The film's in the final stage of production and the soundtrack is available on digital platforms, and to be released on vinyl later this year.

Meanwhile, this live set has all the 80s/early 90s movie style elements in place, with a set that's not a million miles from Nirvana's Smells like teen spirit video, and an audience who have come straight from teenage late-night movie central casting, with a little bit of appropriate narrative suspense to add to the flavour.

Clair: Danser ou crever

Here's something nice. In difficult times there's a need for something that's apparently simple, perfectly crafted and 

Clair's Danser ou crever is like a welcome reminder of better times, and a hope that things might be that good again. We can choose to die or we can choose to dance. 

As long as we keep a metre apart.

The song's by Philippe Katerine and was produced by Philippe Katerine and Pierre Daven-Keller. Daven Keller is a long-time friend of this blog, first coming across his  Reaction in C album in 2015, to enjoying his Kino Music collection that was released last year.

Philippe Katerine's Confession album was released in November last year, and Clair features on the track Un Jour Sans.

Feu! Chatterton: confinement cover version

As the lockdown lifts gradually in France, with shops beginning to open and movement restrictions loosened, some great material recorded under the confinement continues to emerge.

Here's a great new track from Feu! Chatterton which appeared on their Facebook page at the end of May,  a cover of  Mon nom, originally by Rodrigo Amarante. It featured originally on Amarante's 2013 Cavalo solo album. Amarante, a member of Brazilian band Los Hermanos as well as Little Joy, a band also featuring Fabrizio Moretti from The Strokes.

Feu! Chatterton's most recent release was last year's Feu! Chatterton Live 2018 EP, released as part of last year's Disquaire Day event. The five-track release was recorded on their live dates promoting the  L'Oiseleur album, a collection that was nominated in the Best Rock Album category in the Victoires de la Musique 2019 awards.

Singer Arthur Teboul featured on Christophe's final album, Christophe, Etc. Vol. 2 - released in December last year -  on a re-recorded duet of Le Beau Bizarre.

Feu! Chatterton's plans for a run of eight sold-out live dates at the  Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris in March and April were cancelled. 

It won't be long until things are back to normal, and hopefully more new material from Feu! Chatterton and more live dates will be confirmed before too long.

Up on the roof with Aloïse Sauvage

Coronavirus confinement means artists having to find new ways to present themselves, so respect to Aloïse Sauvage for taking to the rooftop for a special video for Mega Down.

Locked down in a house with friends, she was determined to make a video for one of the tracks on her Dévorantes debut album using the means she had at hand - a drone and the house she was staying in.

A visit to the rooftop at sundown and some gravity-defying moves later it makes for an engaging clip, and one that's a little different from the usual home studio/playing at home videos that have emerged in the light of the pandemic.

Well, I suppose parkour was invented in France and health and safety issues are no hindrance to the bold Aloïse.

Fortunately, she's got good footwear, a pretty photogenic building under her feet and a nice location. The roof looks in good nick too, perhaps she removed some moss and cleared the gutters while she was up there.

Previously established as an actress, she's appeared in amongst other films 120 battements par minute, she released her debut EP Jimy in 2019 ahead of Dévorantes. Her performance of  À l'horizontale at this year's Les Victoires de la Musique televised award ceremony was a highlight of the event and an unforgettable introduction to her work for a huge audience across France.

Many of her scheduled live dates have fallen due to lockdown in France but she's goy=t some scheduled for later in the year which may yet happen.

Another (troubled) return for Bertrand Cantat

A new musical project - Paz - emerges from Bertrand Cantat.

It comes three years after Amor Fati, his first proper solo album following the termination of Noir Désir in 2010.

Cantat's personal history with regard his public career remains an unresolved and very public moral debate. Found guilty of killing his partner Marie Tritignant in 2003 and sentenced to eight years in jail, he was released in 2007.

His subsequent decision to resume his public musical career led to widespread condemnation and protest, some seeing him as a symbol of societal acceptance of violence against women, others maintaining that despite what he did, he has the same right as any former convict who has served their sentence - even a public figure - to pursue their career without continued punishment.

It's a question that's unlikely to be resolved to the satisfaction of either party. The irony of the situation being that in the debate, Cantat and Noir Désir having previously been politically aware and involved, would probably have sided with those opposing Cantat today.

The work had been intended for a stage show to be performed in a theatre near Bordeaux in March,  which was cancelled following multiple objections. Cantats's not performed live since his 2018 tour which saw tour dates and festival appearances cancelled in light of demonstrations and objections.

This release is quite different from his Amor Fati album or his Détroit collaboration with Pascal Humbert, Paz instead being a work that combines poetic spoken word with musical backing, at times ambient, at other times more rock influenced.

Férey's work, while in the French Policier tradition, reflect on larger political themes such as political repressions, apartheid and colonialism. Paz, released last year, is set in Colombia and tells of family tragedy amidst the backdrop of the Colombian guerilla war against the FARC.

It's a dark work, reflected in the Paz album which sees entirely new pieces of text rather than passages from the book used in the seven tracks

It's available in digital formats at the moment, with a physical release expected later in the year.