“I Lived On the Moon”
Music video for the French band, Kwoon. Directed by Yannick Puig.

“Gobelins-Annecy 2009″
Promo produced by the French Gobelins School of Art and Aniation for the Annecy animation film festival.

“Flowers”
Music Video for Emilie Simon

Photo by: Elizabeth Sentianin , Sculpture by: artzura.com

Here it is. Finally. The (abridged) transcript of last month’s interview with Emilie Simon. Emilie is off touring Europe right now, so here in the States, we probably won’t be hearing anything from her for a while. In the meantime, you will just have to read this and get all excited for the eventual American release of her latest album: The Big Machine. If you live in Europe, you can already buy the album (or, at least you can in France). You can also catch Emilie on tour, which you ought to do, because it is a life-altering experience. You can read the complete (almost) interview here.

The Indie Handbook: First of all, let me say that it is such a pleasure to meet you. Have you ever been to Chicago before?

Emilie Simon: No, this is my first time to even leave the club, so I will discover it with you.

TIH: So you’ve been living in New York for a while, right?

ES: Yeah, it’s been almost two years now.

TIH: What made you pack up and come over here?

ES: At the beginning, I just came for vacation and I enjoyed it, so I decided to stay longer. And I ended up moving here. I think it was just the right timing for me. I was between two albums, so I finished my tour and came here.

TIH: How long do you think you’ll stay.

ES: I have no idea. I didn’t plan it, I don’t plan ahead. I plan what I have to plan, like if I have a tour. I know I am going to be touring pretty much all of 2010. But you never really know what’s going to be happening in your life.

+Read More+

Attention, le mois de novembre est historiquement un mois important pour les concerts et pour moi aussi. Cette année ne déroge pas du tout à la règle alors ouvrez grands les yeux (et les oreilles) parce que ça décape !! (désolé de ne pas avoir pu écrire avant mais j’espère que ceux qui voulaient voir Coeur de Pirate ou Vitalic ont fait ce qu’il fallait)

Je n’ai pas ajouté de sélection particulière pour Jazz d’Or 2009 mais du 6 au 20 novembre, Strasbourg est envahie par des concerts de jazz de grande qualité. Tout le programme sur www.jazzdor.com !

Samedi 7 Novembre
Nouvelle Vague + Melanie Pain
La Laiterie

En voila un groupe français qui brasse du talent à tout va ! Les spécialistes de la reprise classe sont de retour avec un 3ème album et ça risque de valoir le détour. Quant à Melanie Pain, elle n’est autre qu’une des chanteuses attitrées du collectif et elle a fait quelques productions solo dans un style un poil retro.

Lundi 9 Novembre
Grand Corps Malade
Illiade

Le plus populaire des slammeurs français, très sympa à écouter pour ceux qui aiment le genre.

Jeudi 12 Novembre
Patrick Watson & Wooden Arms Band
La Laiterie

Attention : Enorme talent ! On avait déjà prévenu, il est déjà passé à Strasbourg et il a fait un show phénoménal mais bien trop court. Cette fois, il revient pour un set plus long. Vous êtes prévenus, c’est du très pointu.

Vendredi 13 Novembre
Ebony Bones + Dub Pistols + DJ Vadim
La Laiterie

Pour avoir vu le show d’Ebony Bones cet été, je peux vous certifier que c’est haut en couleur et bourré d’energie ! Un sacré spectacle à voir. Musicalement, c’est très dense et ça part dans tous les sens, c’est du ton sur ton. DJ Vadim, signé chez Ninja Tune, et les Dub Pistols qui n’ont pas une sale réputation sur scène animeront le reste de la soirée.

Vendredi 13 Novembre
The Bloody Beetroots + Elisa Do brasil
La Laiterie

La soirée précédente n’est pas incompatible avec ces concerts là qui viennent plus tard dans la nuit. Une release album party d’un côté et un DJ set de furieux en vue. Un programme plus que correct pour lancer le WE !

Samedi 14 Novembre
Les Cowboys Fringants
Zénith

Les plus fêtards des québécois vont faire trembler les murs du Zénith. Un gros coup de coeur !

Samedi 14 Novembre
Grande nuit Argentine
L’orangerie

Nuit très spéciale dédiée à ce fabuleux pays et surtout à ses danses incroyables…

Samedi 14 Novembre
INOX
Rhénus

Grosse soirée techno house avec des DJs tels que Josh Wink, Bob Sinclar, …

Mardi 17 Novembre
Marcel et son orchestre
La Laiterie

Marcel restera éternellement Marcel, avec ses costumes de ouf, son ambiance déjantée football bière.

Jeudi 19 Novembre
The Dodos
La Laiterie

Ovni plutôt agréable à écouter mais pourtant pas évident d’aborder : une sorte de pop expérimentale et psychédélique… Surpenant !!

Samedi 21 Novembre
Miossec
La Laiterie

Un songwriting de qualité, un rendu excellent sur scène, Miossec fait partie de cette ancienne génération qui a traversé les âges sans prendre une ride.

Mardi 24 Novembre
Pura Fé
Cheval Blanc

Soirée assez exceptionnelle avec l’ambassadrice de la nation indienne Tuscarora de Caroline du Nord qui va passer pour déployer des compositions qui risquent d’en faire voyager plus d’un dans les grands espaces…

Mercredi 25 Novembre
Indochine
Zénith

Est-il nécessaire de présenter le groupe de Nicolas ?

Jeudi 26 Novembre
Olivia Ruiz
Zénith

La petite a bien grandie pour pouvoir s’autoriser un Zénith. Tant mieux pour elle, au risque de se noyer sur une grande scène comme ça.

Jeudi 26 Novembre
Toy Dolls + uncommonmenfrommars
La Laiterie

Un grand classique de la scène punk avec un show survolté assuré. Malheureusement.

Jeudi 26 Novembre
Wild Beasts + Dan Black
La Laiterie

2 flèches montantes outre manche. Wild Beasts a sorti l’un des albums les plus remarqués de l’année et Dan Black, ex The Servant, fait partie de cette nouvelle vague d’electronica anglaise.

Vendredi 27 Novembre
Emilie Simon
La Laiterie

Tout le monde sait que je suis fan d’Emilie et en plus, elle me sert un concert à domicile pour mon anniversaire ! C’est-y pas adorable ?! Pour ceux qui aiment ce qui se passe sur album, sachez que le spectacle sur scène vaut largement le détour aussi. Elle compte clairement parmi les artistes français les plus impressionnants de cette décennie.

Samedi 28 Novembre
Wax Tailor
La Laiterie

La France est toujours à la pointe de l’électro mondiale et des petites perles comme Wax Tailor ne font que le confirmer. Un show vraiment très sympa à vivre, aussi raffiné que ses albums !

I followed her for years – not in a creepy stalker way, but the way any true fan tracks the career of an artist he or she admires – spending countless hours in dusty independent and secondhand record shops near university campuses and enlisting the help of friends and family in Europe to track down a catalogue of records that you just can’t get here. It was all very calculated and deliberate. Meeting her, on the other hand, was (almost entirely) an accident.

It was on one of these prospecting expeditions (in search of a release date for her latest album, The Big Machine) that I caught a glimpse of Emilie Simon’s tour schedule. Noticing almost immediately that the next show was scheduled to be in Chicago, I, without thinking, sent off a message to (literally) the only American contact I could find and several hours and half a dozen emails later, we had plans to sit down for a cup of tea after soundcheck.

As I approached Berlin Nightclub and heard the sound of “Opium” emanating from behind the swinging doors, I had no idea what to expect. I am not exactly a veteran of the club scene and I had never even heard most of the songs on the album she was touring, but walked in, trying as best I could to look like I knew what I was doing. What I found: half a dozen people prepping and decorating for the party that night, Elizabeth (my contact), and Emilie on a small stage in the middle of the room surrounded by machines and a keyboard. I stood and listened as she finished her soundcheck, attempting to recover the carefully planned talking points that had fled my memory the moment I came into the presence of my all-time musical idol. How do you cover such an impressive body of work in 20 minutes? You don’t, but the attempt became markedly easier when I discovered that we have a great deal more in common than I ever thought I would with anyone I consider a true genius.

Her first two albums (Emilie Simon and Végétal) and her soundtrack for the French version of March of the Penguins, included some of the most intricate textures I have ever encountered in the course of a four-minute “pop” song. The Big Machine is different, though. You could think of it as the first of her “American” works the way you might “Dvořák’s “New World” symphony. After all, she’s been living in New York for almost two years now.

“At the beginning, I just came for vacation and I enjoyed it, so I decided to stay longer. And I ended up moving here. I think it was just the right timing for me. I was between two albums, so I finished my tour and came here,” she says. And any such dramatic change is bound to make an impression: “I don’t know why, but there is something very intense and creative about New York with all of the artists…but something very noticeable to me when I was in New York was that it was full of a lot of energy…. I don’t want to say that it’s more energy or something, it’s just different and because you are not used to it, it is very noticeable, so it’s really inspiring.” It’s that spirit of change that was such a factor in the new sound heard on The Big Machine.

“I think I had a way of doing things from the first album….I was sort of building the basics. For the album after that, I feel like it was a little bit the same way of working: that I was experimenting and still building and I needed to change – to try something else…because…there is a point where you know that you are totally capable to do that again and again and there is no point in doing that again and again.” And so, the IRCAM alumna and winner of three Victoires de la Musique set out to reinvent herself. “I thought, I am going to stop writing on the computer first and see what instruments I need the most for writing songs and it’s been the keyboard, so…for a long time I was writing without a computer, without programming and everything, just working on the composition itself, the song and its structure.”

As a result, her vocals, once set back within the instrumental texture of her songs, have been moved into the foreground, featuring more prominently than ever before. “The other albums are more…like: I have my studio; I can spend a lot of time programming details and the vocals become a part of the instrumentation and are in balance with the other elements. This one was more about the energy and this kind of urgency of writing…. I was moving every week; I had a keyboard and that’s all…It was more of a raw energy, so the vocals took a lot of space because I needed to express myself and I didn’t have all the sounds.”

But such “urgency of writing” is the nature of an album conceived almost entirely in a live setting. After a short set at the Roxy in L.A. where she played several of the new songs for the first time, Emilie embarked on a five-week residency at The Cutting Room in New York. “At the Cutting Room… I was adding a new song every week. So every week I had to finish the programming of a new song and make it ready to be played.” That live atmosphere was maintained throughout the recording process as Emilie “decided to keep [the] energy of experimenting on stage and find [her] band and record”. And she seems happy with the results, assuring me that “everything was like it was meant to be like this”.

Still, someone so involved in the intricacies of composing, as Emilie is, does not relinquish control easily: “at the beginning, I thought maybe I’m going to find the right producer for this album and ask somebody else to produce it…but I didn’t find this perfect person that I can trust so much more than I can trust myself…. And because I produce all my own albums now, I really know what I like, what I don’t like, and trusting somebody else – it has to be amazing, and I trusted and I worked [on] this album with really amazing people and I opened a lot,..but I still kept being the producer of the album because I know where I want to go…I was more like the captain, but the crew was amazing”.

That amazing crew included Kelly Pratt and Jeremy Gara (both of Arcade Fire) and John Natchez (Beirut) as well as sound engineer Mark Plati (David Bowie, Alain Bashung) and Renaud Létang (Feist, Gonzalez…) who mixed the album. The result is an album that “is very different from the other ones: a lot of energy – a different type of energy – a lot of it because of New York and the kind of energy I’ve felt there. It’s the influence of New York on me”.

As we walked back to the club, part of me wished she had an extra day or two to experience Chicago’s own characteristically unique energy that slips so often and unfairly unnoticed beneath the glamorous cacophony of the coasts, rather than the 22-hour reality of airports, traffic, and Belmont Avenue (and you ever do have the time, I hope you will let me know). No offense to the neighborhood, but the one block stretch between Berlin and Starbucks at Clark and Belmont (much of which was under construction at the time) is not exactly the pinnacle of what my beloved Chicago has to offer. Still, for a few hours on October 15^th and for reasons I cannot even begin to express, there could have been no more perfect place.

Les changements d’habitudes proposent quelquefois de bonnes surprises. Prenant les transports en commun depuis peu, je peux allègrement écouter dix fois plus de musique qu’auparavant.

Sur ce constat, je tenterais de vous proposer ma sélection musicale chaque mois et j’essayerais d’exprimer quelques critiques sur chaque album ou compilation égrainés au fil du temps.

Voici donc la playlist d’octobre 2009 :

Cliquez sur les cover pour accéder aux différentes écoutes

Récapitulons :

7 Albums

2 OST :

1 compilation :

Si vous avez aimé ou pas certains de ces albums, exposez et faites partager vos différentes critiques , émotions, envies ou autres découvertes durant ce mois.

prochain billet : “Zero 7 : i’m not affraid”

Bear with me for a moment, because I’m not sure where I am going with this, though I promise it relates to music (or at least the way we experience it). If you are a frequent reader of The Indie Handbook, you may have noticed that I have been away for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t really an intentional hiatus, it just sort of happened, and while I love this blog, I am glad I’ve had these two weeks to myself. It has given me a chance to think about a lot of things: about this blog – where we started, how far we’ve come, where we’re going; – the paradoxical, amorphous, ridiculous “indie” universe we (all of us) are constantly creating and defining, even whilst it defines “us” and what the crap this all has to do with me.

And, in all of this, it’s that quest for self-definition – and the subsequent manufactured persona – which has stuck with me (while this is the ideal place for a Kierkegaard reference, I’ll give it a miss; go read The Sickness Unto Death). It’s time we faced the truth: we are a lost generation. Unfortunately, while we are tragically overrun with Hemingways, we haven’t produced an Eliot or Fitzgerald yet (though I suspect there is at least a Hart Crane in our midst, you’ve not yet met her; she lives in Chicago). Even though we claim to prize ambiguity above all other virtues and cherish what we like to call “nuance”, we all require some degree of definition.

And I am not immune to this. When we began this blog, we set out to be ourselves. We were going to ignore the rules and dress code and requisite iPod playlists that define indieness and be honest with you about who we are and what we like – and where the music is concerned, I think we’ve achieved that. But talking to Kristin this week, I came to the realization that I have done a fair bit of inventing over the last eight months. I’ve reinvented myself (or, more accurately, manufactured a second, internet exclusive, Self), and I’m not sure I like him.

Internet Eric is fascinated by celebrities, loves cute girls, and has a particular appreciation for cute celebrities with a celebrity crush list twelve miles long. He does nothing but listen to, think about, and write about music all day. But if you went to a show expecting to meet a trendy, girl chasing, indie music blogger with earphones permanently attached to his head, you’d never find him, because he doesn’t exist. The real me cannot be trendy because they don’t make “indie” clothes for fat people. I like cute girls, but I am drawn to brilliant, creative, irrepressible, strong women with wide-ranging interests who are as fascinated by numbers as they are storytelling. And, frankly, you are more likely to catch me reading Lolita or a fashion/design magazine or “The Waste Land” for the 384^th time, than listening to my iPod (which is actually an Archos 605). It’s true, I am as cynical in real life as I come across online, but not so much about other people as my own inevitable failure as a human being.

I say this because I met a genius last week. She has created two of the most perfect albums I have ever heard. Her work is so intricate – so detailed – that I hesitate to even wish to understand her creative thought process because I’d probably break something. And, above all of this, she is one of the sweetest people I have ever met. In all, we sat for half an hour in a busy Starbucks and talked. As far as I know, no one recognized her, and all the while, in the back of my mind, was this little voice saying if you only knew who this woman is, what she can do, what she’s already done, you might stop and listen to what she has to say. I doubt she was thinking the same thing.

Later that night, she (Emilie Simon), made her Chicago debut at Berlin Nightclub, which (for those unfamiliar with the club) has a reputation as one of the premier gay discos in the city. I had never been to a specifically “gay” anything (well, a hotel, once, in Boston, but that’s a different story), nor have I ever felt so un-judged in any reputed “straight” club or bar that I’ve been to. I saw things that night that I’ve never experienced before. I saw people who were entirely uninhibited, dancing with abandon and wearing clothes I would never be caught dead in.

And I leaned over to my friend Lindsey and whispered, (read: shouted) in her ear, “I envy them.”

“So do I,” she said.

Songs to make a overmanly meathead uncomfortable

Emilie Simon – Flowers
The Magic Kids – Hey Boy
Mareva Galanter – Pourquoi Pas Moi?
Kiiiiiii – Dancevader biber-hill pop
Phranc – Twirly
Clare and The Reasons – Pluto
The Shangri-Las – Heaven Only Knows
Hunx and his Punx – Gimmie Gimmie Back Your Love
of Montreal – Tim, I Wish You Were Born A Girl
Kate Bush – Kite
Tiny Yong – Mon Chien Et Moi
Claudine Longet – I Love How You Love Me
Astrud Gilberto – And Roses And Roses
Gunilla Thorn – Merry-Go-Round
Katie Lee – Will to Fail
Ken Nordine – Yellow
Ken Nordine – Green

Ayer mi padre, mirando vídeos de Emilie Simon, encontró uno que imaginaba que me gustaría. Y efectivamente. Se trata de Emilie Simon. La canción es “The Frozen World”, de la BSO de “El viaje del Emperador” (una película/documental a mi parecer precioso, sobre la emigración de los pingüinos de Antártida).

La letra más abajo.

Won’t you open for me
The door to your ice world
To your white desert

I just want to stare
Out over these snowfields
Until we are one again

We belong to the frozen world

When the ice begins to thaw
Becomes the sea
Oh, you will see
How beautiful we can be

When the ice begins to thaw
Becomes the sea
Oh, you will see
How beautiful we can be

Everything is calm
At the end of the planet
In our white desert

The sun kissed the ice
It glistens for me
And we are one again
We belong to the frozen world

When the ice begins to thaw
Becomes the sea
Oh, you will see
How beautiful we can be

When the ice begins to thaw
Becomes the sea

mamamia, je sors d’un arret maladie, et j’ai repris le taff ce matin, bien, je vais vous dire je suis encore un peu comateuse…

Une journée en plus ne m’aurais pas fais de mal !

Pour me tenir un peu eveillée

une chanson d’un groupe mythique

ABBA Mamamia

Et comme j’ai ratée deux jours, les deux suivantes sont des cadeaux

Emilie simon To the dancer in the rain

The Fray You found me ( pour cette dernière, gros coup de coeur)

When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I was going to post about. Not much new music has been in my head lately because, for the last ten days, I have been unable to tear myself away from The Love Language album I wrote about last week. Then, this afternoon, I unexpectedly lined up an interview with Emilie Simon, a veritable musical superhero, IRCAM alum, and goddess of electronic music, who will be making her Chicago debut 15 October (if you live in the city, you owe it to yourself to be there with me). Since then, I’ve had electronic music on the brain, which is more or less what Gabriel Prokofiev’s Concerto for Turntable and Orchestra is.

Earlier today, my friend Kathryn over at Pieces of Moments asked me what I thought of the piece. At the time, I’d only read about it over at the Naxos blog (a brilliant label in its own right). It was enough to pique my interest, and her question sent me scrambling for a stream somewhere online. I found one over at bandcamp.com. It appears that the last movement is not included in the stream, but what is there is more than enough to get a feel for the piece.

Those of you are so inclined may recognize the composer’s surname and you would be right, he is, in fact, the grandson of the inimitable Sergei Prokofiev (the subject of my senior thesis in college). Well, I say “inimitable”, but listening to the opening minutes of the Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra, it is clear that the inextinguishable SP spirit still burns a couple of generations down the bloodline. If you are at all familiar with the more irreverant side of Shostakovich, I dare say you will catch glimpses of that as well, especially in the introduction “Grime Eye” and the following movement, “Irreguluv”. None of that is to say that GP is a mimic and a borrower with no original ideas (I reserve that honor for John Williams alone). The voice throughout this recording is clearly his own, constructed from a palette of early Soviet textures, trip-hop and jungle bop textures, and clubnight beats. Check out this recording from Nonclassical Records featuring DJ Yoda and the Heritage Orchestra under Jules Buckley. It also features several remixes by the composer, as well as: David Schweitzer, Medasyn, Monster Bobby, Li’ll Bo Tweak, Kat!Heath!, and others.

And while you’re at it, check out Nonclassical Records, Gabriel Prokofiev’s label which just recently launched in the States (finally!). They are a label all about bridging gaps, breaking rules, and shattering expectations. Recently, I was watching an interview with Tyondai Braxton at NewMusicBox.org. He talked about the continued dismantling of the wall between “art music” and “pop music”. I’ve been talking about it here for months (and in other places for years). I discussed it with Shara Worden. I’m going to bring it up when I talk to Emilie Simon next week. The list goes on and on and on, etc. This is the future, folks. Embrace it.

La rentrée est pleine de bonnes surprises alors voila quelques pistes à explorer.

 Déjà, à la fnac, il y a beaucoup de bonnes affaires en ce moment, notamment une excellente sélection électro et puis la quasi totalité des Floyd à moins de 10€. The Intro Collection de Louis Armstrong, un coffret 3 cds à moins de 10€ aussi.

Sinon, dans les disques qui me plaisent beaucoup dernièrement :- True Romance

• Golden Silvers
• The Hickey Underworld - The Hickey Underworld
• Jamie T - Kings and Queens
• Rodrigo y Gabriela - 11:11
• VV Brown - Travelling like the light
• Raphael Saadiq - The way I see it
• M - Mister Mystère
• Coeur de Pirate - Coeur de Pirate
• Passion Pit - Manners
• General Electriks – Good city for dreamers
• Cocoon - Back to Panda mountains

On Friday all eyes will be on Ireland who is set to vote for the second time on the Lisbon Treaty. A second rejection could paralyse the European Union or lead to a radical change in its very nature. For instance there could be different circles of involvement in EU affairs for every country (it’d be a mess).

Recent polls give reasons to be optimistic and I had to smile when I watched this interview of Ireland’s Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche, the moment he compares this referendum to his proposal to his wife: “I had to ask her several times to marry me before she decided that she would marry me and I’m very pleased I persisted.”

Ireland and Europe have been an odd couple for years but many agree that Ireland’s Economic Miracle between 95 and 2007 has something to do with Ireland being part of the European Union. How about sport? Ireland exported a few gems from Roy Keane and Keith Wood to the UK or Tony Cascarino to France. An Italian coach took over the national team and Ireland’s still undefeated in the qualifying round of the FIFA World Cup 2010.

But to me – the best examples of Ireland-Europe cooperation are to be found in music. Here’s a Top 5.

5.  Ireland + France – Neil Hannon meets Air (Between waking and sleeping)

4. Ireland + Germany – Róisín Murphy meets the town of Cologne (I absolutely love this song [The truth]- the tight white top even more)

3.  Ireland + France – Perry Blake meets Emilie Simon (Graine d’étoiles)

2. Ireland + France again – Boyzone meets Alliage (Te garder près de moi)

(If you can’t joke on your own blog)

1. Ireland + Italy – U2 meets Pavarotti (Miss Sarajevo – just fucking brilliant)

SUSCRIBE

Desert by Emelie Simon

Don’t Let Me Down by The Beatles

SUSCRIBE

Amateur de toys, souscrivez de toute urgence à la newsletter de Metroplastique. Seuls quelques exemplaires du Kidrobot vainqueur du Dunny 2009 seront mis en vente prochainement sur la boutique en ligne de Supakitch & Koralie (25 ex. produits seulement)…

Big Apple réussit décidément bien aux deux montpelliérains puisqu’ils ont été choisi par Emilie Simon, autre montpelliéraine vivant à New-York, pour illustrer son nouvel album “The Big Machine“. Un troisième opus produit entre New York, Montréal et Paris avec le concours du célèbre producteur Mark Plati. Le même Mark Plati qui s’apprête à mixer l’album des montpelliérains de The Chase.

Si SupaKitch & Koralie ont été chargés des illustrations (et des photos de presse) de l’album c’est parce que “nos mondes se juxtaposent en totale coherence“, peut-on lire sur le blog des graphistes. Une collaboration qui a abouti à une ville imaginaire ; un Dreamland, comme le proclame le premier single de l’album.

Et mais attendez, Dreamland, Dreamland… ça ne vous rappelle rien ? Bon sang mais c’est bien sûr ! C’est le titre du manga dessiné par le montpelliérain Reno Lemaire. De là à croire qu’Emilie Simon est fan de Shonen…

François

http://www.myspace.com/koralie
http://www.myspace.com/supakitch
http://www.myspace.com/supakitchetkoralie
http://www.metroplastique.com/

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xafv7d_emilie-simon-dreamland-clip-officie_music