So what do Ren and Stimpy, the Ronettes and the
\nX-Files<\/i> theme song have in common? Well, at one point or
\nanother April March, aka, Elinor Blake, lent her talents to those
\nventures as a song writer and vocalist. She also fronted a band
\ncalled the Pussywillows. Her latest endeavor is an album influenced
\nby the French pop music sound of the early sixties. This music,
\nknown as Y\u00e9 Y\u00e9, has a schmaltzy lounge sound that has
\nyou conjuring up visions of Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn traipsing
\nthrough Paris in springtime.<\/p>\n
My first listen to
\nChrominance Decoder<\/i> was a bit of a shock. This music was
\nsteeped in a tradition I’d not been exposed to and I wasn’t sure
\nhow to respond to it. To my untrained ears, the opening song,
\n“Garden Of April”, sounded like a childs nursery rhyme without the
\nbenefit of lyrics. Or maybe this was a soundtrack for a trip
\nthrough La La Land. I gave the disc an obligatory listen, then put
\nit aside in order to purify my cd player with something less “out
\nthere”.<\/p>\n
I find that like all good reds, an album needs time to breath in
\norder to be really enjoyed. What may be bitter to swallow at first
\nmellows out and becomes quite palatable in time. And how does an
\nalbum breathe? Simply by planting a few stains in your head and
\nallowing your brain to do the rest.<\/p>\n
And so it was with
\nChrominance Decoder<\/i>. I could not put melodies like
\n“Gar\u00e7on Gla\u00e7on\/Nothing New” out of my head. Nor could
\nI dislodge the eerie lyrics to “Sugar”. I even found myself
\nwarbling the nonsense syllables to that ear candy “Garden Of
\nApril”. I gave the disc another spin in order to savor it without
\nmy initial prejudice. I was rewarded with the clever nuances in
\nBertrand Burgalat’s sparse yet expansive production and the
\njuxtaposition of March’s sometimes sinister and pessimistic lyrics
\nwith his happy Y\u00e9 Y\u00e9 sound.<\/p>\n
March’s voice seems to have been transplanted from another world
\nin the lovely “Mickey Et Chantal” and the dreamy “Maritine”. Her
\nvoice floats down on you like eider down. Then there’s the jazzy
\n“Charlatan” where her smooth breathy performance reminds me of very
\ncontented purring cat. Even in bitingly, sarcastic songs like
\n“Ideal Standard” and “No Parachute,” her vocals float through the
\narrangements like clouds.<\/p>\n
March’s vocal innocence and Burgalat’s sharp nouveau Y\u00e9
\nY\u00e9 production are excellent contrasts for lyrical content
\nwhich is cynical, eerie and sometimes quite disturbing. In the cut
\n,”Sugar”, March sings about being lured into the forest by a man
\nwhose “nails were not clean” and his “eyes were like cherries and
\n[his] skin was like clay\/ [his] hair was like jelly and it
\ngleamed”. With a chorus like “You took my sugar and left me tears”,
\nwe’re left to wonder what depraved incident occurred with this ogre
\namidst the trees.<\/p>\n
“No Parachute” almost sounds like a taunt with these lyrics
\n“She’s got you in a harness\/But not the practical kind\/….She’s
\ngonna drop you\/It’ll be cute\/No parachute”. There is also a French
\nversion of this song on the album and it is one of eight songs sung
\nin the language. March is an American but writes songs in both
\nFrench and English. This distresses me only because my French is
\nminimal at best and I’m dying to know what she’s singing about! And
\nshame on the powers that be for not including the lyrics in the
\ninserts.<\/p>\n
The Dust Brothers supply two remixes to the album, placing a
\nlayer of modern grooves over the retro sound of “Sugar” and
\n“Nothing New”.<\/p>\n
This disc takes a little getting used to if you’re submerged in
\ntoday’s alterna-rap culture. There was once a time in popular music
\nwhen innocence was a commodity, when leisure and romance were the
\nideals. The period was brief. March and Bergalat have offered us a
\nglimpse with
\nChrominance Decoder<\/i>. So mix yourself a mint julep, throw
\nthis disc on and settle down comfortably in your chaise lounge.
\nYou’ll be taken to a bygone era with a tether still connected to
\nthe present….Bon Voyage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":25296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6265],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36502","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-april-march","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36502"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36502"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}