Friday 6 August 2021

Canadian Fabienne Thibeault in her miraculous first 3 albums, plus more















This is an artist that is very similar in style, in emotion, in arrangements and songwriting, to Marie-Claire Seguin who I posted for a Christmas present for myself Dec 2020 in all my loneliness if you remember, but not quite as stellarly impressive.  Mind you the music in Fabienne's two albums is consistently gorgeous from beginning to end with the kind of progressive and orchestral touches that just make me weep with joy, but it's a little more generic in some places.  So if by a shocking accident you loved M-C Seguin squared then you'll like this artist.

From 1976, the track Chez Nous (i.e. back to her childhood home) which talks about growing up on a farm or country home (they played in stacks of hay, they found a stray cat with babies, they saw an old bronze cauldron, brings me back so vividly to my own childhood):



At the last verse: 'do you often go back in memory to your old childhood home, today it hasn't been long since there have been children who only have known concrete...'  I'm not even going to pretend I understand how a human being can come up with such beautiful, utterly unearthly, heart-dissolving music, for ex., in the harp passages, the effective chromatically descending chord structure at the end of the verse, the bridge with its surprisingly deep D minor strings passages, the vocalizing that finishes the track, etc.   Incidentally the music is by Pierre Hetu.

The next song if such is possible is even more beautiful, called A Faire La vie:



The powerful undercurrent of deep melancholy is reminiscent of M-C Seguin as well.

The stunning music was written by this gentleman (Pierre Hetu) who primarily worked as a conductor. The full credits for this LP are visible on this page.  I don't see any other musical compositions from his database worth looking for, anyone know anything more?

From the 2nd album, which means 'the life of this hour' in the broken up, unFrenchly, and ungrammatical Quebec dialect, from 1977, a song called Le Grand Monde:



And a song that clearly must have been a hit back in those days--had to have been a number one hit, so catchy and with such a great hook,  called Je Veux qu'on m'aime:



Of course I mean that tongue in cheek, as is always the case...

There are many composers responsible for the beautiful music on the sophomore album, as you can see from the credits, incl. the previous Pierre Hetu who surprisingly is not responsible for the most beautiful songs this time round, seems he ran out of ideas by this time.

From 1978's Gilles Vigneault collaboration and co-written with him called Au Doux Milieu de Nous, L'errante:



By the way for those curious, like myself, songwriting credits can be found on this listing page, thank god for the guy who entered this info.  You can then easily note that the compositions with Fabienne in the credits are far superior to those, invariably simplistic folk, by Gilles (ouch!).  Interesting case where the woman beats the man.

It's important to note (or is it??) that these three albums have been rereleased as CDs though they might be difficult to find, as is so often the case with albums on this blog. I don't know, I haven't checked it out.  I'm not sure what 1978's Starmania is, and after listening to the music I'm pretty sure I don't want to know. I threw in a CD compilation of Thibeault as a wonderful example of how most of  THE BEST MUSIC was left off these stupid comps, and can only be found on the original LPs. Or Cds.



 


4 comments:


  1. first 3 (Fabienne Thibeault (1976), La Vie (1977) Au Doux Milieu (1977))

    https://www91.zippyshare.com/v/12OKZFyS/file.html

    https://www.sendspace.com/file/1rll8b

    (limited time only)

    Starmania

    https://www115.zippyshare.com/v/tzWynCI6/file.html

    https://www.sendspace.com/file/j4jmhx

    ReplyDelete

  2. comp lossless limited time only

    https://we.tl/t-TjulGsSnJo
    compilations in mp3

    https://www28.zippyshare.com/v/cIREmM10/file.html

    https://www.sendspace.com/file/8iugec

    (all limited time only)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Dear Julian,

    A very interesting Progressive Radio Program in Portland:
    https://xray.fm/shows/the-pm-show


    Yours Sincerely,

    Flávio

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi!

    Thanx for these. A "new" artist = "new" hears here & a "new" addition to Canadian music collection.

    Cheers!
    Ciao! For now.
    rntcj

    ReplyDelete