Chocolat Chaud

Blimey! The Tindersticks have gone synth!

Anyone who came across our sister night Tonight We Fly will know that we have a great fondness for Tindersticks and their stock in late-night-music-to-drink-red-wine-in-dingy-bars-whilst-dressed-in-a-shabby-suit to.

They have occasionally put out music that has crept into the L'Amour Electronique remit - the odd French language version and a number of film soundtracks for French film director Claire Denis (Nénette et Boni is a particular favourite at L'A-E HQ).

So it is pleasing to report that they have just put up a teaser for their latest soundtrack (For Denis' Les Salauds, or Bastards to you non-Francophones).

The big surprise, as alluded to before, is that it is purely electronic and sounds like a slurred and seedy Giorgio Moroder tragi-disco comedown. It gets stranger: it is a cover of a Hot Chocolate song. Only Stuart Staples and co. could get away with this...

You can download a shorter edit of the full song for free from the Tindersticks website.

And some helpful wag has already posted it on soundcloud



The film is screening in French cinemas now (hopefully a UK release soon?), and the soundtrack album is due on 16th September (LP & CD from the Tindersticks shop), and is already available on iTunes.

Bonjour Tristesse

Sam requested something darker and more melancholy, which goes completely against my current mood, but I do always try to oblige reader's requests (within reason!).

This is a dark and epic François de Roubaix instrumental from the 1968 Robert Enrico film Tante Zita. A film with death as its central theme - ah French films, never afraid to tackle the BIG themes!

I used to play this quite a lot at our sister night Tonight We Fly. It is so terribly melancholy, but in a beautifully fragile and uplifting way.

François de Roubaix - Tante Zita: Loin (version instrumentale)
[you can buy this re-issued on the monumental Disques Motors 3-disc boxset]


I have to say, based on all I've read about the film, I wasn't expecting the trailer to be quite so upbeat...

Le Premier Amour

The new Wes Anderson film has a Françoise Hardy song on the soundtrack - this is a good thing.

It's not surprising that he chose the Jacques Dutronc-penned Le Temps de L'Amour: a song which perfectly captures the wide-eyed innocence and burning intensity of first love, and is a perfect introduction to the delights of mademoiselle Hardy.

Unfortunately, bringing such music into the populist consciousness means it will very quickly be picked up and sullied by crass TV execs from Channel 5...  Oh thank you Mr Anderson!

Electro Rapide & Blood Red Roses

The wonderful Finders Keepers Records has just released 2 new Jean-Claude Vannier albums.  Yes two!

The first, Electro Rapide, is a collection of rarities and curios from the Vannier tape vaults, taken from the period before and during his time working with a certain Monsieur Gainsbourg.  It's a bizarre and brief (only 25 minutes long) mix of the epic, comic, strange, and sometimes disturbing mind of the composer-arranger.

More info and soundclips

The second, Roses Rouge Sang, is an album of brand new material recorded with the cream of the session musicians who plied their trade on the 60s scene (Vic Flick, Dougie Wright, Herbie Flowers, Pierre-Alain Dahan, Tony Bonfils, Denys Lable, and Mark Chantereau).  The fruits of this re-union could almost be a long-lost early-70s album by Gainsbourg himself - all brooding strings and taut, rhythmic funk. Whilst Vannier's vocal-style recalls Serge's earlier hesitant chansonnier style.

More info and soundclips


A version of the following song appears on Electro Rapide.  You can find this "mid-tempo version" as a bonus track on Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches (also on Finders Keepers)

Jean-Claude Vannier - Je M'Appelle Geraldine (mid-tempo version)
[buy Electro Rapide and Roses Rouges Sang on CD and mp3 direct from Finders Keepers Records - they need your support having lost most of their physical stock in the PIAS warehouse fire back in August]

John Barry R.I.P.

It has been reported today that John Barry, one of the great film score composers of the 20th Century, has died.

We don't play much John Barry at L'Amour Electronique (his widescreen music is better suited to our sister night Tonight We Fly), but here are a few L'Amour related points of interest:

• John Barry was Jane Birkin's first husband, with whom she had their daughter Kate. 
• John Barry composed the score to Beat Girl, which starred Gillian Hills. 
• John Barry was an early adopter of the Moog synthesizer - see his score for the Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

He also made great use of the synth on the awesome 'theme from The Persuaders' (1971).



His music will live on.

Porno a GO-GO

Currently receiving repeat rotation at L'Amour Electronique HQ is this amazing French-Canadian porn soundtrack from 1969.

I discovered Valérie recently over at Psyquébélique. It seems it is one of those "lost" soundtracks, and has never been officially released. Together with Otis Fodder and S.Ébastien at Patrimoine PQ, Simon Psyquébélique has ripped the soundtrack direct from the DVD, complete with sound-effects and snippets of dialogue, and with some sleek artwork based on the original movie poster.

Michel Paje and Joe Gracy's compositions are surely up there with such heavyweight Frenchies as Jean-Claude Vannier and Serge's music for Pierre Koralnik's Anna. The dialogue snippets and sound-effects on Valérie serve to make it all the more evocative, with some tasty motorcycle action, answer-phone messages, and what appears to be a struggle with the most archetypal French porn villain imaginable (check the "Ah! NO, NO, No-No-No-No!" during Le Premier Client). Meanwhile the music veers from hypnotic, spy-flick piano to kitsch go-go, via sitar exotica, hammond funk, and some of the most maudlin tunes I've heard since those badly-dubbed foreign-serials they used to show when I was a kid, during school holidays.

You can download this unofficial version of Valérie for free from Psyquébélique, go there now and tell him L'Amour Electronique tipped you off.