En studio avec Serge Gainsbourg

Description

Spread across 3 CDs, this 59-track collection, comprising a selection of Gainsbourg's songs (including many unreleased and exclusive versions), songs by other artists, and a volume dedicated to film scores, is the audio companion to the 450-page Gainsbook, available in bookstores from October 17th. The result of over twenty years of research and sixty interviews with Serge Gainsbourg's historical arrangers, sound engineers, and session musicians, this work sheds new light on a repertoire of now international stature. During the 1970s, a new breed of versatile, British behind-the-scenes figures shone on the complete take of 'Melody' (under the direction of Jean-Claude Vannier) and the entirely unreleased instrumental version of 'L'Homme à tête de chou'. On this choice track, Alan Parker harmonizes his guitars in direct lineage with Lou Reed's Rock'n'Roll Animal with the prog keyboards of arranger Alan Hawkshaw. The culmination of this wordless sequence: the twelve cosmic minutes of 'Lola Rastaquouère's' backing track, launched into the stratosphere from Kingston in a single take by legendary reggae rhythm section Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. Wicked! Fascinating from start to finish, the exploration of the multitrack tapes contains its share of surprises: here an expurgated rhyme from 'L'ami Caouette', there an edifying "it has to be nonchalant" uttered by Gainsbourg at the beginning of 'S.S In Uruguay', as if to emphasize the irony of Rock Around the Bunker. A few pleasure moans cut from the original 1967 'Je t'aime moi non plus' by Brigitte Bardot are also offered to discerning ears. Mixing subtleties are also present, whether they enhance the sitar drones on Giorgio Gomelsky's London treatment of 'Torrey Canyon' or validate the disco-funk expertise of Jean-Pierre Sabar and his team on the soundtrack of the scandalous Madame Claude.