Category: Culture

The last album of Miossec “The survivors”: a bubbling serenity

The Breton singer returns with his eleventh studio album “Les Rescapés”, released on September 28th. If Christophe Miossec has always been a little apart in the French song, it seems with this opus have found a certain serenity, but always with an inner urgency that pushes him to write and compose, again and again. A music he describes himself as “organic”.

At 54, Christophe Miossec already has a good career and a dozen albums to his credit. A singular writing, a rather minimalist music, and methods of recording and production close to the craft. On the sidelines of the majors, he built himself an atypical career and was able to hook a public, since become faithful. 
His last album “The survivors” (Columbia) released September 28, reflects both an assumed serenity and an internal revolt always present. 

The first song opens with a statement of urgency: “we are the survivors, we are the survivors” sings Miossec. The text echoes the current issues, be it climate change or migrants.

But the singer also describes it as a very personal song. Because he considers himself a miracle worker who has been able to continue to work, despite a sinuous path, off the beaten path.

An album recorded in trio over three distinct periods

“The survivors” was built from May 2017 to April 2018, in three distinct periods. 
Brest first with Mirabelle Gilis and Leander Lyons. Old-fashioned recording sessions with “pre-program” instruments: a piano, organ, mellotron, and an Elka branded Italian drum machine. Always this desire to remain “organic”, to propose a carnal music, with flower of skin. 
Then second stage at Badabing studio by Julien Delfaud where the songs are recorded live, with Mirabelle Gilis again, but also Laurent Bardainne and Sylvain Daniel. The pieces take shape with the added bass more present.
Finally, the Garage studio for the mixing phase with Dominique Ledudal. Miossec adds all the guitar parts, which he plays himself.

The singer from Brest considers this album as his most personal music since “Drinking” in 1995. Witness this other shock song, “the sea”, which, again, refers to the dramas of migrants. The clip shows us the innocence of two kids on a rubber boat, but that seems lacerated by bites: “The sea, when it bites, it’s mean”. 
This uncompromising and sharp writing sometimes gives way to more lightness (“The man”) and benevolence (“People”). 
The music is also more catchy on “I became” and manages to stay groovy even on the darker themes (“We die”, “The infidels”).

Source: The last album of Miossec “The survivors”: a bubbling serenity

Paris Match “Hommage mondial à Charles Aznavour”

‘Colette’ review: Keira Knightley’s latest is based on a fascinating tale. But the movie doesn’t quite live up to it.

None of the relationships crackle in this portrait of the French novelist’s life.

Movies based on real people have one job: to be at least as interesting as the lives they portray. With a woman like Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, an early 20th-century writer best known for her erotic novels, that should have been an easy bar to clear.

We join Colette (Keira Knightley), as she was more widely known, and lover Willy (Dominic West) when she’s living in a small village in Burgundy, and he’s her city mouse counterpart. They marry, and he brings her to Paris, where Willy is the head of a publishing house dubbed “the Factory.” There, a team of writers crank out fiction, all of which is published under Willy’s name. When the writers run dry — most notably because they have not been paid — Colette takes up her pen and produces a series of semi-erotic novels about the adventures and misadventures of Claudine, a country girl who ends up in Paris. The novels may be based on Colette’s life, but Willy takes the credit.

That’s a story we’ve seen before: A female writer finds her voice, only to have it hidden. That’s not the only tale “Colette” tries to tell, though. As she becomes more worldly, her sexual tastes begin to shift. She has a fling with an American heiress (Caroline Boulton, with the most syrupy Southern accent this side of Scarlett O’Hara), then an extended relationship with Missy (Denise Gough), a member of the nobility. Missy causes scandal by wearing trousers and living a decidedly masculine life. It’s unclear if she’s transgender; all that’s said is that there “isn’t a word to describe her,” which there probably wasn’t during that time in Paris. [ . . . ]

Continue at WASHINGTON POST: ‘Colette’ review: Keira Knightley’s latest is based on a fascinating tale. But the movie doesn’t quite live up to it. – The Washington Post