SILVAIN VANOT

SILVAIN VANOT

Beginings
Born in Normandy in 1963, Silvain Vanot is the son of a sculptress and a painter. He spent his youth in Criquebeuf-sur-Seine, a suburb of Rouen. In the cellar nigh-clubs where he listened to the Rolling Stones and "Blonde on Blonde" by Dylan, he formed rock groups without any real future. One of them was called the Clay Eaters and they played a punk rock that swung from the Sex Pistols to the Dogs (a rock group from Rouen, whose members Silvain had met at Melodies Massacre a record shop in town).
After the Regrets and The Ennuis, Silvain dropped the group idea and concentrated on his preparatory studies at Victor Duruy High School and his teaching exam but he failed. Young Vanot left the family nest permanently for Paris where he became a literature professor at St John-Perse. Not really passionate about his students and a teaching career, exploring a bit of journalism in specialised magazines, Vanot continued to strum his guitar and to send numerous demos to record companies who barely responded.

The Singer Poet
One day however, one of his demos landed in the hands of Jean-Louis Murat who were in full glory at the time. The singer from Auvergne was seduced by the voice and intonations of Vanot who reminded him of Neil Young or Lou Reed. Murat insisted that his record company Virgin produce this young artist and in 1993 Silvain Vanot’s first album appeared. It already contained some gems "Corvéable à merci" and "La vie qu’on aime". On the latter song, Vanot’s lyrics portray a person who is tortured by the meaning of life plagued by terrible existential doubts: "Une sensation étrange / Une vision qui dérange / C’est une odeur trop forte / Comme une bête morte"(a strange sensation/a disturbing vision/It’s a strong smell/Like a dead animal). We also find on this album a rendition of a poem written by an anonymous from the 15th century, "En douleur et tristesse". So we give some Joachim du Bellay, Gérard Manset and Neil Young to this skilled man of letters who knows how to play the guitar admirably to give an image of courtly love and deep despair. But certain songs with more cryptic lyrics are much more mundane. Thus he admits later that "Le jour se lève" tackles the subject of masturbation...
His first album had modest sales, 8000 copies but more than that Vanot just unknowingly took his place amongst the best of a rough and black song, as Miossec or Dominique A.
After a concert at the Inrockuptibles and a tour opening for Jean-Louis Murat (who he did not forget to thank on his first opus ("à ceux de la Croix-Morand sans qui…") the second album appeared in 1995. The Neil Young Crazy Horse tendency confirms itself with saturated guitars and a fitting voice that he worked on with his voice coach Madame Charlot. "Le soutien du Roy", "Le reste de mon âge" and "Sur des arbres" are as much music which expresses energy equal to skinning someone alive as it is Vanot.

Revelation at Bourges
On his second album he surrounded himself with the same musicians as in the beginning but added the services of guitarist Marc Ribot on the song "Rembrandt." He and Dominique A redid the song "Seagull Woman" by glam rocker Marc Bolan in French and adapted "Bonne Fortune" a poem by Charles Cros. More elaborate than his first opus, "Sur des Arbres" shows the evolution of an artist who enriches his vocal and musical range in asceticism that was the trademark of French rock at the time. "I wanted to go towards more diversity and lightness too. Propose something more cheerful, sunnier" he explained. This was followed by a new tour, this time headlining. Even if sales remained modest (10,000 albums sold) the singer’s fame grew. The concert at the springtime festival in Bourges in 1996 was a revelation for him. Scheduled with Miossec and Dominique A, the three artists had an equally triumphant success amongst the public. Following this, in 1997, he took part in the recording of the song "Chanson/refrain" on the album "Comme un seul homme" to raise money in support of organ donations. On this album we found Daniel Dar, Clarika, Autour de Lucie and Mathieu Boogaerts.

Third Album
Vanot’s next album was recorded in Nashville, Tennessee (USA) with Robb Earls, the sound man for the country group Lambchop whose sideslipping sounds were appreciated by Vanot. The sound takes were done in the Quad Studio where Neil Young recorded "Harvest" some twenty years earlier. It was incontestably artistic consecration for Vanot who let his new group burst open here with all of the musical knowledge and verbal wealth. American for the music, French for the lyrics (he recorded them all in France) "éGérie" is without a doubt his most accomplished album. A capital G in honour of the person who accompanied him over the years in the sometimes difficult creation and preparation without ever complaining explained the singer.
Of his own accord he abandoned his "natural rigidity" and varied the styles from quick rock (fast as a whip) "C’est dans ma tête" 1’26 to softer and more dreamlike tunes like "Il bouge aussi" sitars worthy of Tom Petty or T Rex appear on L’Hirondelle" "Mary, ville morte" is a hymn to a female town that takes from those who want to covet her. "Mary rots those who touch her/leaving a strange taste in their mouth". All of his songs were going to become such unifying hymns for those who appreciated this singer-poet who wanted to" stay in the background and to use a language that is not heard on television.
The "personnel" from the album has changed a lot. After "Sur des arbres" drummer Philippe Sirop left to form a folk-rock group L’attirail while the new guitarist on "éGérie", Dominique Depret was already thinking about forming his own: Holden.

Acoustic Vanot
New album, new tour...Vanot was already thinking about his next recording. This was in fact a sort of acoustic session of his old songs. Released in 1999 "En Attendant tout brille" revealed -as it often does regarding acoustic takes- the quality of Vanot’s lyrics and music. If "éGérie" imposes itself musically, "Tout brille" has listeners at its disposal who are inevitably attentive to the simplicity of the chords and the softness of the voice. We find tunes that have become classics for the singer "éGérie", "La Norme", "Petit bois", "La vie qu’on aime", "Corvéable à merci", but also some previously unreleased tunes like "Un air à deux voix", "Tout brille" or the venomous "Vipère". Finally Silvain shells out two cover songs (a redundant exercise of all of his records) but they are not songs from the stones or T Rex but tunes from Africa "La bêtise humaine" by Gustave Gbenou and "Yannis" from Greece.
Between July and November 2001, the singer went back to the studio to record a new opus in Paris, in collaboration with Jacques Ehrart—who successfully produced Henri Salvador’s "Chambre avec Vue". Entitled "Il Fait Soleil", like its the first single track (a cover of Jean-Roger Caussimon’s song) the album was released in February 2002. Faithful to its title, the album developed rich, warm musical tones, benefiting from Madagascar accordeon-player Regis Gizavo, who rejuvenated "Rame le canot", a song by Reunion artist Alain Peters. Vanot’s slow tempos, which constitute his brand image, are to be found everywhere on the album. As soon as it was released, critics went off to acclaim this new opus by the ‘artisan-artist’, as they call him, proclaiming him a ‘great’ singer-song-writer. Canot’s undeniable gift for writing also led him to publish a biography of Bob Dylan that was released in 2001.
Aesthete with Droopy’s face, Silvain Vanot has long suffered from his appearance and voice which give him complexes. Cast against a world where looks and voice win out over sense, he nevertheless managed to impose his style, a know-how from Medieval music to unknown poetry from the Sixteenth century from where he draws inexhaustibly to sing about a certain ill-being and to move the listener.

SILVAIN VANOT (1993)
320KBPS
1. Sous ta fenetre
2. Un jour se leve
3. La bouche herbue
4. Les yeux precieux
5. L'amour tue (la vertu)
6. Une autre chanson
7. Lacrime
8. Voler voler voler
9. Corveable a merci
10. En douleur et tristesse
11. La vie qu'on aime

SUR DES ARBRES (1995)
320KBPS
1. Petit bois
2. Le soutien du roy
3. L'instant que je guette
4. Le reste de mon age
5. Sur des arbres
6. Le fusil d'André
7. Rembrandt
8. La même farine
9. Bonne facture
10. Ma couche
11. Trop tôt
12. La journée
13. Seagull woman
14. Celle qu'on regrette

EGERIE (1997)
320KBPS
1. Il bouge-aussi
2. L'hirondelle
3. Mary, ville morte
4. C'est dans ma tete
5. Dis-moi pourquoi
6. A l'heure ou...
7. Pas vieilli
8. Quelque
9. Egerie
10. M'eloigner de toi
11. Je suis un jour
12. Bonjour
13. Je te voulais
14. La norme

IL FAIT SOLEIL (2002)
192-320KBPS
1. Il fait soleil
2. Aurore
3. Les roseaux
4. Plus je m'y perds
5. J'en sais assez (sur toi)
6. Ile de france
7. Aux heures vagabondes
8. Rame le canot
9. Des cailloux
10. Les fous des rues
11. Tête vide

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