 |
  |
Album review
Rita Mitsouko
From Indie Rock to French Music-hall
Paris
13/09/2002 -
The musical content of La Femme trombone is set to cause a few surprises. After years of experimenting with indie rock and injecting dance beats into French 'chanson', Les Rita Mitsouko have turned to the old-fashioned charm of music-hall. The songs on the duo's new album mark a clear break with earlier work, featuring finely-honed lyrics, realistic situations and explicitly personal feelings. More importantly, the tracks on La Femme trombone will be noticed for their melody-lines rather than their dance rhythms!
And yet despite Les Rita's radical change of direction, the duo's raw material remains the same. Catherine Ringer and Fred Chichin still weave their melodies from basic rock, pop and electronica, although this time round they put a decidedly unexpected spin on things. On Sacha, for instance, the duo set 21st-century eroticism to an old-fashioned waltz while on 1928 they experiment with 50s cabaret influences. Meanwhile, Vieux Rodéo finds Ms. Ringer standing up to defend the feminist cause. In short, La Femme trombone is a smooth urban, contemporary album which sparkles with fun and enjoyment – but it will perhaps go down in history as the least "scatterbrained" of the Rita Mitsouko's albums to date.
RFI: You seem to have gone back to a more classic "chanson" style on your new album. Was this a deliberate move on your part?
Fred Chichin: Well, this time round we decided to work on the songs and not make any judgement on them while we were working - whether it be in terms of lyrics or musical arrangements. I think we instinctively adopted a much tighter format when it came to working on the new album.
RFI: Do you think that's got something to do with reaching artistic maturity and achieving a certain musical know-how?
Catherine Ringer: Frankly, I think if we'd known how to work like that ten years ago then we'd have done so. But then again maybe back in those days this way of working wouldn't have suited us.
RFI: Were all the songs on La Femme trombone written specially for the album?
Catherine Ringer: Well, a couple of the songs already existed as ideas - I'd had the idea for Trop bonne-La Femme trombone buzzing round my head for a while, for instance. And we'd written bits and pieces of other songs. But I have to say in most cases the lyrics were written afterwards to fit with what we'd already come up with in terms of music. And there were some songs on the new album that were actually written in a day!
RFI: Did the fact of having written the lyrics so quickly cause any regrets afterwards?
Catherine Ringer: Well, we gave the songs room to develop, you know, taking things out and adding things here and there and changing different bits. When we started work on the album I found it impossible - sometimes we'd have a piece of music which wasn't long enough for a certain text, but I couldn't bring myself to take out any lyrics to make it fit.
Fred Chichin: Working that way meant that some songs didn't work out at all. We've been moving in the same direction for a while now, you know, making songs with lyrics that really have something to say, set to a real rhythm. But obviously things don't work out all the time - we have our share of failures.
Catherine Ringer: But not because we've gone too quickly. Some of our songs are revised and reworked to death!
Fred Chichin: Take Pense à ta carrière, for instance, that was a real failure of a song and yet we put an enormous amount of time and effort into it. In fact, that's why it was a failure in my opinion!
Catherine Ringer: We actually came up with a lot of different musical arrangements for that song.
Fred Chichin: Maybe that's where we went wrong, writing music to fit the lyrics. It's much easier for us to write lyrics to fit the music.
RFI: Talking of lyrics, it's been a while since you recorded such an explicitly feminist song as Vieux Rodéo... Catherine Ringer: I really felt like looking at where women stand today, you know, drawing up a balance of what we've gained, what we've lost. I got the idea for the song after watching a TV programme where a bunch of young women were talking about how difficult it is to be 'modern girls' in school these days. The problem is boys automatically classify women as 'mothers' or 'whores' because they're bombarded with explicitly sexual images of women in porn films and video clips… After that I just let myself go! Because that was more or less the theme of the new album, letting go and giving into our impulses. There was a point in our career when I might not have written a song like that - maybe I'd have found it too hard-hitting and direct. But not now.
RFI: The new album seems to revolve a lot around couples and relationship problems…
Catherine Ringer: But that's a subject I feel I've always dealt with!
Fred Chichin: Maybe this time round things are a bit more direct though.
RFI: Catherine, you're due to appear in Alfredo Arias and René de Ceccaty's musical, Concha Bonita, at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris this winter. Is this a new direction for your career, a brief break or a new hobby?
Catherine Ringer: I've been a big fan of Alfredo Arias's for a long while now. And I have to say it's great being involved in a musical, acting a character and having costumes and all that. Besides, I love the idea of being involved in a collective project where other people will be up on stage singing with me.
RFI: And how will Concha Bonita fit in with Les Rita Mitsouko?
Catherine Ringer: It fits in perfectly. I don't think it interferes with Les Rita in any way. On the contrary, it could lead to other productions and open new doors… Whatever happens Fred and I will be back on the road together touring next spring.
Interview: Bertrand Dicale
Translation: Julie Street
Homepage photo:Youri Lenquette/ Virgin
CD: La Femme trombone des Rita Mistouko, Virgin
Tour dates: Nancy (13 September), Strasbourg (14 September), Clermont-Ferrand (18 September), Paris, Le Grand Rex (20 September), Brussels (21 September), Rennes (26 September), Nantes (27 September), Lyons (2 October), Lausanne (3 October), Marseilles (5 October), Bordeaux (10 October) and Montauban (12 October).
Bertrand Dicale
Translation : Julie Street
03/03/2000 -
