Silvain Vanot - Bethesda

I hate to bang on about this but even in 2010 we, in the UK, are still so blinkered when it comes to foreign language recordings. Check out the other European countries and you will discover that they have no problems in listening to and even purchasing English and American albums so why do the English have such a problem with any music that’s not in our mother tongue? Okay, so it’s considered cool now for everyone to suddenly admit that they have been a fan of Serge Gainsbourg since the 60s. Yeah right, and I’d wager that less than a handful of these so called fans can produce an original copy of any of Gainsbourg’s albums that they bought when they were originally released. Unless they lived in Europe of course. There has always been, of course, that cult of music lovers that have stood by the music of the ye-ye girls but they are not taken so seriously by a large proportion of music lovers. There have been a few artists like Francoise Hardy who have been taken seriously over the years and thankfully new artists like Charlotte Gainsbourg are now gaining attention, but for the most part French music gets ignored by the record buying public in the UK It’s always been the same; how many die-hard Small Faces fans who bought Chris Farlowe and PP Arnold albums to get their hands on anything remotely associated with Marriott and Lane actually bought Johnny Hallyday’s album back in 1969? It’s been our loss of course. By taking off those blinkers we could discover so much more great music. Silvain Vanot’s ‘Bethesda’ album is almost entirely sung in French but it matters not if you understand all or absolutely none of the words he sings. It’s in the way he sings, in the way the band play and the overall feeling the album conveys that matters. My French is appalling but I have got more out of this album than many of the current crop of English / American albums I have listened to. Vanot released five albums from 1993 to 2002 and for the last eight years he has composed music for films and corporations as well as writing for other artists. It was Stephane Bismuth, head of Megaphone Music who finally got Vanot back into a studio in North Wales where together with talents like bassist / keyboardist John Greaves (Henry Cow) and pedal steel legend B.J. Cole they assembled the eleven songs that make up ‘Bethesda’. The main attraction in the music that Vanot makes is that he doesn’t just stick with one style. There are touches of country, soul and even a slight sixties eastern feel in the closing song, ‘Les Fleurs’, where Vanot plays sitar and which is an absolutely stunning piece of work. It’s a piece where not just Vanot but all the musicians get to stretch a little and at just under six minutes it still leaves you wanting more. The songs are all originals except for a version of ‘Nature Boy’ which must rate as the most atmospheric version of this song ever recorded and along with the opening song, ‘O Mon Tour’, which is simply one of the most soulful and touching songs I’ve heard all year, in any language and must rank as one of Vanot’s all time best performances, and the aforementioned ‘Les Fleurs’, those three songs are worth the price of this album alone. If you listen to just one foreign language album this year then make it ‘Bethesda’, you won’t be disappointed, it’s an excellent collection of songs which deserves to be heard outside of France.

Track Listing:-

1 Ô mon tour
2 Un pied derrière
3 Les cloches de l'amour
4 Hawaii
5 Rivière
6 Le mouton à trois têtes
7 Nature Boy (Etrange garçon)
8 Bambi blanc / Forêt noire
9 Bois flottant
10 Implacable
11 Les fleurs