Arrêt sur image

Description

In 2001, *Arrêt sur Image* is perhaps one of Bernard Lavilliers' most political and disillusioned albums. It evokes the dark side of Mafia mythology (*L'Empire du milieu*), the rigged lives of the new global economic powers (*Les Tricheurs*), the melancholy of the Lusophone world (*Saudade*), or an artist's spleen in the United States (*Octobre à New York*). “A great black sun turns over the valley / Silent chimneys, locked gates / Still wagons, abandoned towers...” *Arrêt sur Image* will forever remain the album that contains the heartbreaking cry of "Mains d’or," a song evoking the tragedy of workers who suffered for years in industrial hell and are now cast into the hell of unemployment. Few authors have managed to put words to this pain as well as loyal Pascal Arroyo sets it to music. As with the first version of "Champs du Possible," the singer chose not to appear on the cover, as if the rough truth of the world—glimpsed in Tony Soulié's painting—came to dominate the creator's image.