Clothilde

I've been getting really into old baroque pop and ye-ye stuff lately and yesterday I stumbled upon the amazingly great Clothilde. Information on her turned out to be harder to find than a needle in a hay stack. The only thing I managed to find, over and over again was this small blurb: "Clothilde used to say that she was more into painting than music. A protege of renowned producer Germinal Tenas (an alias for Christian Fechner). Germinal worked with punk Antoine et les Problemes, Christine Delroche and he later formed his own band, Chorus Reverendus. He enjoyed mixing traditional pop sounds with weird instruments like the French Horn. The result was a strange and splendid baroque pop, not dissimilar to Shadow Morton's productions for The Shangri-Las." I was basically sold on that description alone, but once I heard the songs it was over, I was in love. It turns out that she only released two EPs her entire career -- a grand total of eight songs -- which is really quite a shame because every song of her's that I've heard so far is an absolute gem. Listen to my personal fav, "Saperlipopette."

[MP3]: Chlothide :: Saperlipopette (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
The production on this track really pulled out all the stops. There's horns, tinkering, almost circus-like keyboards, bells, organ, and just about every other instrument available. The great thing is though, that it doesn't sound over done, or over produced, and it's even still somehow got a bit of a lo-fi feel to it. To top it off, like most singers of this particular genre and era, Clothilde's voice is fantastic. I could listen to her sing anything at all.

Stumble It!