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Christine And The Queens

Redcar Les Adorables Etoiles

    Redcar is only the beginning. This is all an opera.

    It will take some time to unveil, the same way it is unveiling to Redcar, as he acknowledges his crazy freedom. Angels and stars, the sovereign verb, the heart at its center.

    Redcar is not really there to affirm anything but the need to say who we are and what we pray for every day.

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: I've always been a big fan of Christine And The Queens, and Redcar is surprisingly, an even more accomplished number than the nigh-perfect 'Chris'. Eminently melodic and rich with groove, Letissier is the quintessential pop-electronic producer.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Ma Bien Aimée Bye Bye
    2. Tu Sais Ce Qu'il Me Faut
    3. La Chanson Du Chevalier
    4. Rien Dire
    5. La Clairefontaine
    6. Les étoiles
    7. Mémoire Des Ailes
    8. Looking For Love
    9. My Birdman
    10. Combien De Temps
    11. Je Te Vois Enfin
    12. Angelus
    13. Les âmes Amantes

    Christine And The Queens

    Chris - English Version

      Christine and The Queens announces her eagerly anticipated second album. Titled Chris, the record will be released by Because Music in digital and physical formats, including double CD and vinyl versions, as well as limited edition boxset, There are two versions of the album; one sung exclusively in English and one sung exclusively in French.

      Chris was written, arranged and performed by Christine and the Queens. It is the follow up to her already-iconic debut record Chaleur Humaine, released to near-universal acclaim in France in 2014 and the UK in 2016, and selling more than 1.3 million copies to date.

      TRACK LISTING

      Side A
      A1. Comme Si
      A2. Girlfriend Feat. Dâm-Funk
      A3. The Walker
      Side B
      B1. Doesn't Matter
      B2. 5 Dollars
      B3. Goya Soda
      Side C
      C1. Damn (what Must A Woman Do)
      C2. What's-her-face
      Side D
      D1. Feel So Good
      D2. Make Some Sense
      D3. The Stranger

      CD – English Version
      1. Comme Si
      2. Girlfriend Feat. Dâm-Funk
      3. The Walker
      4. Doesn't Matter
      5. 5 Dollars
      6. Goya Soda
      7. Damn (what Must A Woman Do)
      8. What's-her-face
      9. Feel So Good
      10. Make Some Sense
      11. The Stranger

      Produced by Ed Bangers’ SebastiAn (Frank Ocean, Kavinsky) and mixed by Tom Elmhirst (Adele, Lorde, David Bowie), the album features collaborations with Sir Paul McCartney, Daft Punk’s Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Connan Mockasin and Owen Pallett (Arcade Fire, Caribou).

      Having previously written lyrics with Jarvis Cocker and Air on ‘5.55’ (2006) and Beck on ‘IRM’ (2010), ‘Rest’ is the first album where Gainsbourg penned all the words. Feeling daunted by the desire to poetise her ideas, deliverance would arrive initially courtesy of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who provided the music for the title track, steering Charlotte toward a forensically focused approach to lyric writing. “Those were the first words that I actually sang on the album. I came in with all my bunches of lyrics… It was too much, really, and Guy-Man was saying, ‘you can’t say all that, you have to simplify it,’ and he reduced it to three words! It felt so innocent in a way, but it was exactly what I needed at that time”. On the album, Gainsbourg addresses personal topics ranging from the death of her father Serge and more recently sister Kate Barry, to the tensions between her shyness and her life as a performer and public figure, to charmingly illogical childhood fears.

      The album’s major production lynchpin would be French DJ, remixer and producer Sebastian Akchoté-Bozovic, aka SebastiAn, best known for his releases on French house label Ed Banger and for his production work for Frank Ocean. His background in electronic music accorded with Charlotte’s desire for a sound with a disquieting, mechanistic edge, inspired by Giorgio Moroder and, perhaps unsurprisingly for a revered, award-winning film actress, movie soundtracks, particularly Pino Donaggio’s score for Brian De Palma’s ’70s horror classic Carrie and Georges Delerue’s music for Jean-Luc Godard’s nouvelle vague masterpiece Le Mepris, as well as the chilly, unsettling ambience of films like Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Hitchcock’s Rebecca.

      The eleven essays on ‘Rest’ are nothing if not sure-footed, proffering a compelling fusion of gleaming, string-emblazoned modern electro-pop and cinematically textured avant-chanson – their magical music box melodies kissed by bruised, introspective, occasionally disquieting lyrics. The album opens with the nursery rhyme enchantment of ‘Ring a Ring a Roses’, a hazy mosaic of nostalgic childhood snapshots – the verses delivered in intimately captured French, the instantly infectious chorus in coolly clipped English – and ends with the electro-disco-flavoured ‘Les Oxalis’ (named after the eponymous woodland flower). “Those two songs were always the bookends of the album”, Charlotte explains. The latter’s rhythmic energy cuts against the lyric, describing a lachrymose promenade through a cemetery. “I remember SebastiAn asking, ‘Are you sure that’s what you want to say against that rhythm?’ But that’s how this album made sense to me, in the contradiction between things, with the music taking you somewhere and the words going the opposite way”.

      It’s a potent dichotomy that permeates much of ‘Rest’, from ‘Lying With You’, whose busy drums and angular synths frame a lyric about Serge Gainsbourg’s death (“Like everyone who’s gone through this, you have to deal with the memory of someone who is still alive in your head, and the way you’ve seen them dead. I wanted to talk about the crudity of this”, explains Charlotte), to the frank, self-examining ‘I’m a Lie’ (“…about not knowing if you’re able to collapse or fly. It’s something that I’m always wrestling with”), and the wonderfully Giorgio Moroder-esque ‘Deadly Valentine’, whose lyrics, essentially a string of uncannily delivered wedding vows, play out against a motorik Euro-disco beat and soaring strings.

      Another essay, ‘Songbird in a Cage’, was penned for Charlotte by Sir Paul McCartney, no less. “We had a very nice lunch about six-and-a-half years ago”, she recalls. “I couldn’t believe that I was actually sitting next to him. I told him that if he ever had a song for me it would be a dream come true. A few weeks later he sent this track. It was a demo. I didn’t know what to do with it, because I wanted it to be part of the album. We had to reinvent it. Paul very sweetly came to Electric Lady. He did a bit of piano, some bass, a bit of guitar. It was incredible, just to see him work”.

      The aides-de-camp may have played their role on Rest, but it remains undeniably the work of a singular artist, one who has explored her personal darkness in pursuit of a sense of purpose and a place of resolution, purging herself of creative shyness and timidity in the process. “This time it felt like flying on my own. I knew I needed the right collaborator, and SebastiAn was always there, but all the same, this time the album is really mine”.

      STAFF COMMENTS

      Barry says: Brilliant goth-pop, throbbing basslines and the undeniably exotic and infinitely more alluring addition of vocals 'En Fraincaise' (that's french for 'In French'). Lovely.

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Ring-A-Ring O' Roses 
      2. Lying With You
      3. Kate 
      4. Deadly Valentine  
      5. I'm A Lie 
      6. Rest 
      7. Sylvia Says  
      8. Songbird In A Cage 
      9. Dans Vos Airs  
      10. Les Crocodiles  
      11. Les Oxalis 

      Metronomy

      Love Letters - Soulwax Remix

        THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2014 EXCLUSIVE, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

        Limited etched vinyl - 500 copies only.

        Twisted Charm

        Real Fiction

          Idiosyncratic psycho-pop quartet, Twisted Charm, bring us their debut album via France's cool Because label. Hailing from Northampton, the band are driven by a collective mission statement to 'kick regurgitated rock-n-roll in the throat' and their scathingly witty observations of inner city London life cut right to the jugular. This debut, produced by Lance Thomas (PJ Harvey / Ladytron) draws on aspects of modern living, thrashing out inspiration from the realm of cinema, philosophy and social class. The album is immersed in infectious rhythms, sax blasts, warped bass and new wave inflections - modern day pop with a subversive twist. Imagine Gang of Four's post-punk nihilism, Devo's off-the-wall ingenuity, Clor's agit-funk dance-ability permeated with a distinctly London ennui and you're somewhere close to their sound.


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