•
Rating:
If you don't know French, or if you only know words like "madame" and "trezeguet", entering any record store in Paris and trying to explain to the clerk that you're interested in buying "a record by some alternative French artist" can be a daunting task. Then it happens that, on the umpteenth attempt, you're served by a beautiful girl wearing an equally beautiful Pantera t-shirt, and at that point, you feel a bit closer to the goal and let slip a risky suggestion like "I'd like something... like Radiohead"...
Here it is! Syd Matters, with his second official album after "A Whisper And A Sigh" from 2003, "the bridge between Nick Drake, Radiohead, and Robert Wyatt" as I read somewhere I no longer remember. With my doubts (if Matters is a bridge, Wyatt is the Great Wall of China crossing the late twentieth century) I face the twelve tracks that make up the album and all in all, I find that Matters might be right, that one day we will be able to foresee the difficulties and perhaps we will overcome them with the tranquility that his music instills in us, with the clarity of his arrangements. It's as if Thom Yorke stopped being paranoid, personally, I would be much more at peace with the world.
Sure, I didn't find the "downward spiral" of the French underground, as I might have hoped, but I discovered a sincere artist, who has the gift of moderation and calmness, perhaps not a compositional talent but certainly a refined ear, halfway between the immediacy of folk singers and the refinements of modern electronic productions.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 City Talks (02:13)
City talks behind my back
oh you'd better stop your talking before I turn
City streets, they are long
When you're sick and tried of walking on your own
I have stones in my pocket
put them down on the road
So I'll find a way to come back to my home
Dunno when I'll return
Oh I'd rather stop talking or coming back
02 Obstacles (03:28)
Let's say sunshine for everyone
But as far as I (??) can remember
We've been migratory animals
Living under changing weather
Someday we will foresee obstacles
Through the blizzard, through the blizzard
Today we will sell our uniform
Live together
Blizzard
We played hide&seek in waterfalls
We were younger
05 Someday Sometimes (05:16)
I wish I could see you in the dark
Some of us blow but some of us softly spark
Some of them told me they saw you shining bright
To me it doesn't matter
If you're empty on the week end
If you're waiting for the summer to end and start again
It doesn't matter if you're wrtiting foolish letters
If you put them in a bottle
If you're waiting for a dreamer
To answer through the water
Soon someday
give (?) it all away
all with nothing to say
and no reason to stay
life's too tough
and love's not enough
to make me stop thinking of
what it's like up above
Cool Glitters & Graphics For Your Personal
10 English Way (04:38)
If it's too hard to say
Then sing it in an English way
If you leave me high and dry and on my own
Then you will be alone again
If by the end of the day
I listen to what people say
I'll let you decline on you own
Then you will be alone again
Loading comments slowly
