She has two first names, a starry surname, irresistible charm, and a truly singular talent. For over fifteen years, Carmen Maria Vega has led a career as brilliant as the star that illuminates, fittingly, the constellation of Lyra. Singer, actress, writer, director, she constantly multiplies experiences and projects, taking on roles and repertoires with the same energy but never in the same place.
It's no surprise, then, to find her here as an enlightened interpreter of Boris Vian's songs. Like Carmen, the author of *Froth on the Daydream* had many strings to his bow, if not several pistons on his trumpet. A return, rather than a relapse. As early as 2009, she took part in a Vian tribute compilation (paradoxically, she performed "Bourré de complexes" ...) before recording a mini-album of covers four years later, under the already evocative title *Fais-moi mal Boris !* Some of these songs are found on this new album, but re-orchestrated and re-recorded, enhanced with new material.
Alongside inevitable classics like "Strip Rock", "La complainte du progrès", "Je bois", "Fais-moi mal, Johnny", or "J'suis snobe" (with a feminized spelling), one finds or rediscovers more unusual and melancholic ballads that are likely to surprise those who only know Vian's work for its sarcastic humor. Thus, "Barcelone", a moving memory of an Iberian love, "Quand j'aurai du vent dans mon crâne", a cruel evocation of old age set to music posthumously by Serge Gainsbourg as a testament to his unbreakable bond with the one who encouraged him, or "S'il pleuvait des larmes", a universal romance composed by Gérard Jouannest, also after the author's death. Up to "Complainte de Mackie", taken from the famous *Threepenny Opera* which Boris Vian himself translated into French, partly to pay homage to Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht.
Under the direction of musician and arranger Antoine Rault (Lescop, Forever Pavot), these songs, with music by Alain Goraguer, Jimmy Walter, Gérard Jouannest, Serge Gainsbourg, or Vian himself, regain a new freshness while retaining their timelessness as unalterable classics, with the benevolent complicity of Nicole Bertolt, executor of the writer's work. Like the album's cover photo, in which Carmen poses in the artist's Parisian apartment, with his famous harp-guitar.
Boris by Carmen, that does one good!
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