Silvain Venot is not your average French chanteur. He’s collaborated with the likes of Jim O’Rourke and Tanya Donelly, has opened for Sonic Youth and recorded this album in Wales with a line-up including everyone’s pedal steel guitarist of choice, BJ Cole, and members of Shack and Henry Cow. I can’t imagine Johnny Halliday, Charles Aznavour or even Serge Gainsbourg doing that.
Recorded over the course of a week, there are eleven songs ‘of lost love and black humour’ (always good), which includes a rather fine version of ‘Nature Boy’, which send very pleasant shivers down the spine.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with singing in French -or any language other than English, but given that English is the nearest thing pop music has to Esperanto, the lack of comprehension with with what M. Venot is singing about may unfortunately put some people off. This is a shame, because it’s actually a rather lovely album, and I’m willing to bet, very different from what about 95% of readers – including me -will probably get the chance to be exposed to this year.