Albums
aus
Aidan Baker
Big Farm
The Black Dog
Blackshaw & Melnyk
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
Clockwork
Matthew Collings
Coma
DJ Koze
Djrum
Eluvium
Fredda
Freska
Hanging Up The Moon
Jenny Hval
Jimpster
Rena Jones
Mark Lorenz Kysela
Leonhard + Red
Naph
Petrels
Piano Interrupted
Pursuit Grooves
David Rothenberg
Saltland
subtractiveLAD
Terminal Sound System
Andrew Weathers

Compilations / Mixes
Joy
Kumasi Music Volume 1
John Morales
One Point Three (A & B)
Maceo Plex
Soma Compilation 21
Steffi

EPs / Cassettes / Singles
Alter Echo & E3
Amiina
Badawi VS Ladyman
Bunnies & Bats
Diffraction of Sound EP
Gerwin
Heligoland
Hibea
The Monroe Transfer
Chris Octane
RSD
Katsunori Sawa
Andy Vaz

Fredda: L'ancolie
Le Pop Musik

The fourth album by French chanteuse Fredda (Fréderique Dastrevigne) receives a valuable boost from the electric guitar presence of Mocke Dépret (of the Parisian band Holden). In its absence, her album would be a perfectly satisfying collection of French vocal-pop songs; with Dépret's playing factored in, the music feels more raw, bluesy even, and the harder edge gives L'Ancolie some much-needed kick. A good example is “Constant” where the guitar's shudder seems to gnaw constantly at the song's loose folk-blues arrangement.

Fredda's cosmopolitan soundworld is established immediately when “Morin Heights” underlays her sultry French vocals with an acoustic combo's relaxed backdrop, but it's in the subsequent songs, “Journal intime” and “Il ne me reste,” that Dépret's twang starts to assert itself. In simplest terms, the album features a dozen three-minute vignettes of French life that augment Dastrevigne's smooth delivery with banjo, upright bass, acoustic guitar, percussion, and, of course, electric guitar. The songs themselves range from lilting ballads (“Rugir Noël”) and blues-folk (“Constant”) to waltzes (“Vatanen”) and timeless chanson (“Fenêtre à Collioure”); a pop dimension is never too far out of the picture either, as a song like “Fleur d'ennui” makes clear. Even if one isn't fluent in French, a wistful reverie such as “L'ancolie” (composed by Bastien Lallemant) will make even the most resistant traveler pine for the splendour of French countrysides and the romance of Parisian night-life.

May 2013