French-Goth-Surf-Pop

The French band La Femme has a decidedly surf- and noir-influenced sound, with just the right shades of psychedelia, ye-ye, and first-generation goth (Banshees, Bauhaus, Specimen).

And lucky for us, they made a long-form video for their song "Hypsoline." A long form video. That's so ... Duran Duran.

The film creeps around as if a loose adaptation of an M.R. James or J. Sheridan Le Fanu story, finally wrapping around to a nightmare party that we'd still happily attend. (French girls!)

It's lightly spooky and a great exercise in matching song to visuals. Here, drink this ...

Something Worse Than a Vampire?

The French singer Stella got her start during the ye-ye craze of the 1960s despite her persona at the time hinging on her being a satire of the ye-ye girls.

She wasn't quite the Parisian Weird Al Yankovic. Stella simply impersonated a pop starlet by becoming one, all in an effort to gently mock a genre of music that openly embraced looks over talent and ability. [As opposed to all other pop music? -- ed.] However Stella's approximation of the ye-ye style was so skillful, the songs became hits.

Stella's "Le Vampire" isn't about blood-sucking freaks, but the much more terrifying bad boyfriend. Ready Steady Girls sums it up like so: "Though given the ridiculous title 'Si Vous Connaissez Quelque Chose de Pire qu’un Vampire, Parlez m’en Toujours, ça Pourra Peut-être me Faire Sourire' (sometimes shortened to 'Le Vampire'), the song was a successful mix of sound effects and a catchy tune. It gave the singer another hit, in the autumn of 1966."

Now that we've established all that we can move on to this kooky Scopitone of "Le Vampire."

[courtesy of spikepriggen]

Giant hands, a skull mask and an old-fashioned foot sawing -- creepsville man. So in closing: Scopitones are awesome and Stella is worth spending a bit of your valuable time investigating. Let's go pound some brewskis.

[Insert Poorly Conceived French Pun]

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Le Pop/Les Filles -- les chansons de la nouvelle scène française
(Le Pop)
It's ladies night at the world's most accurately named label. And when they say pop, they mean it. These 16 songs bubble and roll with effortless charm, burnishing American and British college-radio fare with big smears of intercontinental sensuality.

Coralie Clément, one of two artists here who made a minor splash in the United States, contributes the hypnotic "So Long Babylone" which stacks ukulele and melodica on a rhythmic piano imitating a spare dub-reggae bass.

The other potentially familiar name is Mélanie Pain, who sang on both Nouvelle Vague albums. Her "Celle de Mes 20 Ans" does a keen impression of Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin'"* -- a move that recalls the ye-ye girl imitations of '60s rock, except Pain can sing circles around the best of that era of French pop.

The only pothole on this road is Austine's "Cupide et Stupide" -- perhaps because the lyric's so easily translated -- but more likely because the song feels so ordinary among the embarrassment of creativity surrounding it.

Françoiz Breut's mournful "2013" must be a three-hanky job for the French. It's still plenty funereal for the rest of us. There's a tipsy circus waltz from Loane ("Petit Bonheur"); brisk new wave from Poney Express ("Paris de Loin"); and the nature hymn "Si Tu Reviens J'annule Tout" by Jeanne Cherhal.

As a buffet of modern French pop, Les Filles is worth the investment. Whatever the boys are up to, the women set the bar high.

Reference material: If you like any of the music from the artist links above, then Le Pop has more where that came from. Get yourself a copy of Les Filles, it's as good a place as any to start exploring a label that The Typing Monkey has championed before.

*[Originally written and recorded by Fred Neil. -- ed.]

Relax Baby Be Cool

STEREO TOTAL
Paris-Berlin
(Kill Rock Stars)
At what would normally be the start of side two of Stereo Total’s 7th LP, the duo delivers a socko double-shot of disco. "Merh Licht" hits the early 1980s style in which house and new wave were slapping a new coat of paint on disco and reselling it to the same audience. The track rests almost entirely on a constant hi-hat, kick drum and spare synthesizers.

Meanwhile "Ta Voix au Telephone" sounds like a well-equipped ABBA cover band not at all trying to disguise the fact that they're lifting from Leo Sayer's "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" and the blatant pornography of The Andrea True Connection's "More More More."

Find any of that distasteful? Then you should probably stop reading. Otherwise Paris-Berlin finds the painfully self-aware co-ed band finding a keen balance between the smooth electronics of Musique Automatique (2001) and their return noisy pop with Do the Bambi (2005).

At 14 songs, the record isn’t without lows -- particularly the been-there, done-thatness of “Patty Hearst” and the too quiet (and guest-heavy) “Baby Revolution.” But the high points provide enough fun that forgiveness comes quick.

“Komplex mit dem Sex” has Francoise Cactus singing hilarious German lyrics about gender confusion. There’s a silly Shonen Knife sounding number (“Plastic”) and enough icy keyboards and stiff guitar/drum rhythms to burst art student pretensions by playing the game better than any one else.

Appropriately, another stellar moment is when they cover Serge Gainsbourg’s “Relax Baby Be Cool.” Plastic Bertrand swiped this riff and fluffed it up a bit for “Ca Plane Pour Moi” but clearly it works best as a monotone command fit for a bank-heist getaway, or maybe a bad afternoon at the hash pipe.

Reference materials: Stereo Total will appeal to fans of Komeda the ye-ye sound of 1960s Paris.