Album review

Bernard Lavilliers

Carnet de bord

Paris 

15/10/2004 - 

Bernard Lavilliers has chosen a highly appropriate title for his new album. Carnets de bord (Logbook) is the fruit of a lifetime's travel on the world's byroads and a result of the globe-trotting singer and musician's thirst for contact with others. What's more, the journey at the heart of Carnets de bord takes place on a musical level as well as a human one, as Lavilliers embarks upon an inner quest for authenticity.

With a music career spanning over 35 years, Bernard Lavilliers admits Carnets de bord gave him pause for thought. "I did wonder whether I'd said everything I have to say," the singer says modestly, "I worried whether this new album would just sound like I was repeating myself." It is certainly no easy business renewing one's inspiration without betraying your fans and your real self in the process. But the veteran French music star appears to have lived up to the challenge. Instead of dispersing his efforts in diversification and over-production, Lavilliers has followed the opposite course, paring his sound back to essentials and rediscovering the basic joys of playing music. Then, in the manner of a true alchemist, he sought to capture the essence of this emotion and share it with others.

Carnets de bord opens with a track called Voyageur (Traveller), a perfect example of the mishaps and adventures a travelling man encounters on his route. "I completely changed the lyrics to 'Voyageur' an hour before going into the studio in New York to record," Lavilliers admits. Such last-minute adjustments may have cost the singer dear (especially as he financed the production of this album himself), but Lavilliers insisted on honing his songs to perfection, even if that sometimes meant reworking them entirely. "I originally did the song 'Etat des lieux' in Paris but it was all wrong," he says, "It was too fast, too jazz-rock. But when I went off to record my reggae duo with Tiken Jah Fakoly I came up with the idea of turning 'Etat des lieux' into a reggae song. And I found that both the melody and the lyrics instantly worked better!"

This could hardly have been a huge revelation to Lavilliers, a musician who is as familiar with reggae rhythms as he is with the legendary Tuff Gong studios in Kingston. But Lavilliers insists that the experience formed part of a personal evolution on this album. "I sing in a much more cool, laidback style this time round," he says, "I use my voice in a completely different way. There's a lot less aggressiveness going on now. I think I've managed to stand back and get a bit of distance on things and a bit of humour has even crept into certain songs. These days, I manage to express myself in a poised, calm way, even when I tackle really horrific issues like on the song 'Etat des lieux.' If I'd yelled my head off on 'Etat des lieux' over hard rock guitars, it would have been too much. I could do that kind of thing when I was 20, when I was an angry young man. At that age, you have to thrash things out on rock guitars. But I've come to realise that you can have the same anger and express things just as deeply without raising your voice. And the way you do that is through reggae which is, at heart, a very sensual music. I think that more or less sums up the tone of the new album!"

Both vocals and lyrics on Carnets de bord bow to the demands of gut instincts and, jettisoning any form of preconceived idea or overall strategy, Lavilliers was totally free to concentrate on the music. "I wanted people to feel with this album that I was playing guitar just for them," he says, "I didn't want there to be any kind of reverb or special effects. I wanted to use purely acoustic sounds. With the percussion it's like Mino Cinelu's standing there right next to you. You can actually hear his fingers flicking across the surface of the instruments… What we did was stick lots of different microphones around the guitar so you get to hear absolutely everything! We worked with some really good sound engineers, like Neil Dorfsman in New York who's worked with Björk and Sting and Dylan…They recorded the sound with the precision you usually find in the jazz world. There was one thing I wanted this time round and that was to restore the intimacy of the listening

As for the guest stars on Carnets de bord, these were all artists Lavilliers met in the course of his travels. He literally bumped into Ivorian reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly at the Tuff Gong studio in Jamaica and met Les Femmouzes T in Toulouse. When it came to approaching Cape Verde's "barefoot diva" Cesaria Evora, Lavilliers did so in a burst of childlike spontaneity. "I love that woman so much," he says, "that one day I sat down and wrote a song inspired by her voice. I went along to see her in concert one night and ended up offering her the song to record." But Cesaria, ever her humble modest self, did not like the idea of singing a song that heaped praises on herself. "So what happened was we recorded the song as a duet," says Lavilliers, "She explains who she's singing for and what motivates her to get up on stage and I do all the admiring stuff!" Lavilliers, the hardened traveller, says he is fascinated by Cesaria's sensitivity and simplicity. "There's something of the Piaf phenomenon about her," he says, "Like Piaf, she expresses the emotions of the people and blows everyone away with her songs. That fragile edge to her voice is just awesome!"

Lavilliers says he is a great fan of Cesaria's style of live performance and loves the way her concerts feel like they are taking place "at home." He shows the same emotion when he evokes Vinicius de Moraes's on-stage presence, admiring the way he sang sitting at a table covered with a checked tablecloth, cradling a glass of whisky in his hand. Lavilliers also appreciates contemporary French rock bands, expressing he has a soft spot for "groups like Tryo, Les Hurlements de Léo and Les Têtes Raides... There's everything going on there. Every now and then you even get a touch of reggae or salsa mixed in with rock and 'musette'!"

Wanting to experience the simple sensation of direct contact with his fans, Lavilliers and percussionist Mino Cinelu spent the summer on the road. "It was just like thirty years ago," the singer recounts with glee, "when we used to play out in the sticks at local youth clubs. We had this old station wagon that ran on diesel fuel and we used to sleep in it after our gigs. We're still capable of doing that, you know. We're still capable of playing somewhere without worrying whether it's got a decent sound system or not!"

Lavilliers, the working-class labourer from St. Etienne, has never lost touch with his roots. "You'll still find me singing in factories that are threatened with closure when the big bosses decided it's cheaper to relocate elsewhere. I'll always be there supporting the guys in the picket line. I go along to keep up morale." Lavilliers is a singer whose political and social convictions have always shone through in his work. He has always been an ardent defender of the 'sans-papiers' (immigrant workers without working visas) and he speaks out for their cause again on Question de peau. But Lavilliers has broadened his agenda these days to campaign on environmental issues, too. Etat des lieux packs a hard-hitting punch aimed at "all those bigwigs who refused to sign the Kyoto agreement. They just go on ruling the world, not caring what happens after they've gone!"

The wisdom Lavilliers has acquired in the course of his travels acts as a moderating force on his passion and anger. On Carnets de bord balance and equilibrium are the order of the day and this is reflected in the artistic approach of his new album. "I'm OK with the idea of having tons of Italian-style echo and multiple layers of strings," he says, "But when you get to the point where there's almost nothing and that nothing is everything, that's when things start to get interesting." One listen to Carnets de bord and you'll surely agree!

Bernard Lavilliers Carnets de bord

Translation : Julie  Street