Brigitte Fontaine

Brigitte Fontaine, born in 1940 in Morlaix in the Brittany region of France, is a singer of avant-garde music. During the course of her career she has employed numerous unusual musical styles, melding rock and roll, folk, jazz, spoken word poetry and world rhythms. She has collaborated with such celebrated musicians as Stereolab, Michel Colombier, Jean-Claude Vannier, Areski Belkacem, Gotan Project, Sonic Youth, Antoine Duhamel, Noir Desir, Archie Shepp and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. She is also a writer, comedienne, playwright, and poet.

Artistic Overview

The daughter of two teachers, Brigitte Fontaine developed her taste for writing and comedy very early. She spent her childhood in small villages of Finistère, then in Morlaix. At 17 years old, she moved to Paris in order to become an actress.

1963-1968

In 1963, she turned to singing and appeared in several Parisian theatres, interpreting her own works. In 1964, she opened for Barbara and George Brassens’s show at the Bobino. Even so, she did not give up comedy. With Jacques Higelin and actor Rufus, she created the play "Maman j'ai peur" ("Mom I am afraid"), which played first at the Vieille-Grille theatre, and then at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. It met with such a critical and popular success that it stayed in Paris for more than two seasons and toured throughout Europe.

In 1965 and then in 1968, she made two albums, one pop and one jazz, as well as two 45s with Jacques Higelin. In 1969, she began what would be a long collaboration with Kabyle musician Areski Belkacem. With Belkacem and in the company of Higelin, she conceived "Niok", an innovative spectacle of theatre and song, for the Lucernaire theatre. Soon after, Fontaine wrote a series of works in free verse and prose which comprised the show "Comme à la radio" at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier before being turned into an album. Recorded with The Art Ensemble of Chicago, this album marks a clean break with traditional French songs, building the first bridges to world music.

1969-1979

Brigitte Fontaine then became an incontrovertible figure in the French underground. In a half-dozen albums, the majority of which published by the independent label Saravah, Fontaine explored different poetic worlds without worrying about the charts. She renounced the use of rhyme, and using talk-over sometimes, she recorded, with very little means and often on two tracks, songs which addressed topics with humour or gravity, according to the mood, as various as death ("Dommage que tu sois mort"), life ("L’été, l’été"), alienation ("Comme à la radio"), madness ("Ragilia"), love ("Je t’aimerai"), or social injustice ("C’est normal"), the inequality of the sexes ("Patriarcat") and racism ("Y' a du lard"). However, she also knew how to make light of herself ("L'Auberge (Révolution)").

Because they sail between pop, folk, electro and world music, the albums "L’incendie" and "Vous et nous" by the Areski-Fontaine duo figure among the most unclassifiable records of the French scene. Almost thirty years later, the international audience of these LPs (sinced re-edited for CD, and now available for download on the Internet) is comparable to that of the cult record "Histoire de Melody Nelson" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier, notably due to the enthusiastic remarks made by members of the band Sonic Youth in the Anglo-Saxon press.

1980-1990

The 1980s were a period of silence, musically speaking, for Brigitte Fontaine and her partner Areski Belkacem. Far from the recording studio, she devoted herself to writing and the theatre. Always active, she appeared onstage in Quebec, she performed her play "Acte 2" in a grand tour of the French-speaking world, interpreted "Les Bonnes" by Jean Genet in Paris, and published a novel ("Paso doble") as well as a collection of short stories ("Nouvelles de l’exil"). In 1984, she recorded a single ("Les Filles d’aujourd’hui").

After having given a series of concerts in Tokyo and other large Japanese cities, she had to wait about five years for a French company to distribute her new album " French corazon " (written and composed in 1984 but released in 1988 to Japan). Having been broadcast notably on French television, the video for the single "Le Nougat", directed by comics artist Olivia Tele Clavel, prepared the public for the big return of the singer to the French stage which commenced with a concert in 1993 at the Bataclan.

1990-2001

In the 1990s, Brigitte Fontaine moved closer to the musical worlds of Björk and Massive Attack by testing new, more electric musical forms and, especially, more electronic forms than before. Her lyrics mark a return to a more classical, versified form. The release of her album "Genre humain", in 1995, met with great success (more so on the part of the critics than the general public) with surprising titles like "Conne" (produced by Étienne Daho, lyric titles like "La Femme à barbe" (produced by Les Valentins), and poetic ones like "Il se mêle à tout ça" (produced by Yann Cortella and Areski Belkcem).

In 1997, while she published a new novel ("La Limonade bleue"), she recorded "Les Palaces" and its landmark track "Ah que la vie est belle!". The album, very well-received by the press, is enriched by the collaboration of Areski Belkacem, Jacques Higelin and Alain Bashung.

2001-Present

Her albums "Kékéland" (2001) and "Rue Saint-Louis en l'île" (2004) benefited from prestigious collaborations with artists such as Noir désir, Sonic Youth, Archie Shepp, - M-, Gotan Project, Zebda, etc. In 2005, after having given a series of concerts with her usual band (but also with La Campagnie des musiques à ouïr), she published a new novel, "La Bête curieuse", whose erotic ambiance somewhat foretold the tonality of her sixth album, "Libido" (2006). This new album renewed her concerts with a lively energy and gave them a very "baroque 'n' roll" ambiance, in which Teresa of Avila, Sufis, Hollywood films, and Melody Nelson are invoked.

In October of 2006, Fontaine appeared at the Barbican Centre in London along with Jarvis Cocker, Badly Drawn Boy and other English artists, for the first public interpretation of the mythic "Histoire de Melody Nelson". In January 2007, she appeared onstage with graphic novelist Blutch at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. On March 29, 2007, she invested in the Olympia music hall, supported by her friends Jacno, Arthur H, Christophe, Anaïs, Jacques Higelin, Maya Barsony and Jean-Claude Vannier. In April, she played at the Printemps de Bourges music festival and participated in her Quebecois admirer Pierre Lapointe's concert for a duo of "La symphonie pastorale". After having given a series of intimate concerts all through September on a barge anchored under the Pont des Arts on the Seine river in Paris, Fontaine toured throughout France. Between two concerts, she went into the studio with Olivia Ruiz to record a new single, "Partir ou rester", for which she wrote the lyrics. In February 2008, she published a new novel, "Travellings", published by Flammarion, while Benoît Mouchart devoted a monograph to her ("Brigitte Fontaine, intérieur/extérieur"), published by Panama.

Albums

*"12 chansons d'avant le déluge" (with Jacques Higelin and Jimmy Walter), Productions Jacques Canetti, 1965
*"15 chansons d'avant le déluge" (with Jacques Higelin and Michel Colombier), Productions Jacques Canetti, 1966
*"Brigitte Fontaine est folle" (with Jean-Claude Vannier), Saravah, 1968
*"Comme à la radio" (with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Areski Belkacem), Saravah, 1969
*"Brigitte Fontaine" (with Areski Belkacem, Julie Dassin and Jacques Higelin), Saravah, 1972
*"Je ne connais pas cet homme" (with Areski Belkacem and Antoine Duhamel), Saravah, 1973
*"L'Incendie" (with Areski Belkacem), Byg Records, 1974
*"Le Bonheur" (with Areski Belkacem), Saravah, 1975
*"Vous et Nous" (with Areski Belkacem, Jean-Philippe Rykiel and Antoine Duhamel), Saravah, 1977
*"Les églantines sont peut-être formidables" (with Areski Belkacem), , RCA-Saravah, 1979
*"French corazon" (with Areski Belkacem and Jean-Philippe Rykiel), Midi/EMI, 1990
*"Genre humain" (with Areski Belkacem, Étienne Daho and Les Valentins), Virgin, 1995
*"Les palaces" (with Areski Belkacem and Alain Bashung), Virgin, 1997
*"Morceaux de choix", compilation, Virgin, 1999
*"Kékéland" (with Areski Belkacem, Jean-Claude Vannier, Sonic Youth, -M-, Noir Désir, Ginger Ale, Lou and Placido, Jean Efflam Bavouzet, Jean-Philippe Rykiel, Georges Moustaki, Les Valentins and Archie Shepp), Virgin, 2001
*"Rue Saint Louis en l'île" (with Areski Belkacem, -M-, Didier Malherbe, Jean Efflam Bavouzet, Zebda, Daniel Mille and Gotan Project), Virgin, 2004
*"Libido" (with Jean-Claude Vannier, -M-, Jean Efflam Bavouzet and Areski Belkacem), Polydor, 2006

External links

* [http://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6081.asp Biography of artist]
* [http://www.europopmusic.eu/France_pages/Fontaine_def.html Brigitte Fontaine on Europopmusic.eu] (English)
* French [http://www.incipitblog.com/index.php/2006/01/02/brigitte-fontaine-paso-doble-1985/ Audio book (mp3):] incipit of Paso doble, written by Brigitte Fontaine in 1985

ource

* Benoît Mouchart, "Brigitte Fontaine, intérieur/extérieur", éditions Panama-Archimbaud, 2008 ISBN 2-755-70067-X