BRIGITTE FONTAINE & ARESKI BELKACEM

BRIGITTE FONTAINE & ARESKI BELKACEM
VOUS ET NOUS (1977)
REMASTER
320 KBPS

Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem's final release before a retirement that lasted nearly 20 years, 1977's Vous et Nous is a remarkable album. A 33-track double album (song lengths range from barely 30 seconds to nearly seven minutes), Vous et Nous often sounds like nothing so much as what Stereolab would be doing two decades later. (The members of Stereolab are acknowledged fans of Fontaine, and the band's lovely "Brigitte" was written in tribute to her in 1995.) The instrumentation alternates between bleeping synthesizers and rattlingly primitive electronic drums on some songs and acoustic guitars and hand percussion on others. For the first time, Fontaine and Belkacem split the vocal duties about evenly; his gruff, mumbled vocals contrast nicely with her much sweeter tone, and the North African and Eastern European influences he had brought to her previous few albums are much more in evidence here. The two versions of the title track, one with a minimal electronic background and the other featuring the same Balkan-style melody played on authentic instruments, are representative of the two stylistic poles of the album. Artistically challenging yet surprisingly accessible (at least more so to a contemporary audience than it might have been upon its initial release), Vous et Nous is an endlessly fascinating cross-cultural experiment, a cult classic and, obviously, something you must try.

1. Vous Et Nous
2. Patriarcat
3. Mon Enfance
4. Vent D'Automne
5. Le Serveur Du Dome
6. Je Suis Venu Te Voir
7. Rien Que Changer
8. Le Ciel Est Doux
9. Les Epis
10. Le Repas Des Dromadaires
11. Vous Et Nous
12. L'Amour Parfait
13. Un Soleil
14. Dans Ma Rue
15. L'Orage Est Fini
16. Gamme
17. Le Brin D'Herbe
18. La Harpe Jaune
19. Je T'Aimerai
20. Diabolo
21. Cher
22. Ce N'Est Pas Un Ennemi
23. Encaustique
24. Petit Sapin
25. Mon Lit
26. Je T'Aimerai
27. La Dechirure
28. Le Petit Cheval Bleu
29. Personne
30. Les Roses Sont Farouches
31. Le Bouc
32. Dessin
33. Les Muzdus