Terre Neuve

Description

Energetic, mischievous and unruly, Terre Neuve is the kind of shock album, full of great moments of emotion, rage and laughter, that we were hoping for to start 2020 off right. Brigitte Fontaine reveals herself here in a performance that is at once intense, wild and overwhelming. “Le tout pour le tout,” “Terre neuve,” as well as the prose of “Hermaphrodite,” rich with dazzling images and unexpected sounds, stand out among the poetic high points of Brigitte Fontaine’s work. We are also delighted to find her eternally childlike insolence again in “Vendetta” (a buffoonish attack on men) or “J'irai pas” (an anti-system punk nursery rhyme). The singer also revives two little-known texts from her repertoire: “Les beaux animaux” (composed by J. Higelin) and “Ragilia” (composed by Areski Belkacem). Produced by Yan Péchin (former guitarist for Bashung) and Jean Lamoot (Bashung, Noir Désir), Terre Neuve is the album of a great artist, who still manages to surprise us, once again shattering the traditional patterns of French chanson. “The stage is as vital as the pain of the same name!”: in the middle of a tour that will pass through the Olympia at the end of March 2020, the ever-fanciful Brigitte Fontaine confides in “her happiness” at finding the audience again “like a cat with her kittens.” “Above all, don’t give my age!” “Should I get down on my knees? I’m incompatible with numbers and age,” she says. “Actually, I’m incompatible with quite a few things... Let’s say I’m 20,000 years old, or rather that I haven’t been born yet. It’s simpler!” We often remember her for her eccentricities, less for her raw poetry, which nevertheless earns her a loyal audience, even going so far as to attract the younger generations with her freedom of tone and improbable looks that have turned her into a cult artist, with fruitful collaborations notably with Bashung and Daho. In 1965, to establish her persona, the singer and actress titled her first album Brigitte Fontaine est... folle! Today, France’s last true punk, according to Télérama, defines herself as a “creator-destroyer, not too nihilistic, not too terrorist, who loves fine literature and bel canto.” In 2013, the unclassifiable artist celebrated 50 years of a career conducted at full speed with J'ai l'honneur d'être, a 20th album set to music by Areski Belkacem, her partner on stage and in life. She will be back on January 24, 2020 with her new album Terre Neuve, bringing together around fifteen unreleased songs recorded with another accomplice, guitarist and composer Yan Péchin, who has also worked with Bashung, Birkin and Higelin, Brigitte Fontaine’s heart “brother,” who passed away last year. Péchin also accompanies her on stage. “On this record, I sing all sorts of things, violent things, moving things, very funny things too, impertinent and absolutely out of place, completely rotten, utterly rotten,” she sums up. Brigitte Fontaine takes aim in particular at the “Masculin assassin”: “La vendetta du con/ C'est la mort du couillon/ Qu'on empale tous les mâles/ Ni pardon, ni manif, assez parlementé/ A bas le sexe fort!” The #MeToo movement? “I’m sick of this story! When I think they want to ban a genius like Polanski, I’m disgusted. They dig up things from 45 years ago. Rape is a crime, but I’m against prisons and against rape too!” With “J'irai pas,” Brigitte Fontaine refuses everything: “J'irai pas me coucher/J'irai pas à votre hôpital/J'irai pas à vos Facebook/J'irai pas à vos enterrements...”. On the subject of great feelings, the “poetess” — her preferred title — follows with the song “Haute sécurité”: “Mon coeur est un tableau sans peintre pour le peindre/Mon coeur est un logo qui n'aurait rien à vendre/Mon coeur est un cachot sans corde pour se pendre”. “They tell me I’m subversive. That’s a bit of an old-fashioned term... Let’s say I express myself as honestly as I can. I’m a passionate anarchist,” says Brigitte Fontaine, “who will never be an adult because adults are boring.” While she merely shrugs when asked what she thinks of Emmanuel Macron, the singer immediately takes the opportunity to “solemnly ask Christiane Taubira to run because she is the country’s only chance.” Don’t talk to her about religion! “All religions are prisons. I’m not atheist, but I believe in absolutely nothing: mystery is everywhere!” Like her date of birth, though only a click away.