i really like the french indie rock scene. well, not that i'm an expert when it comes to know many bands and music contexts from france... i like it because even though there isn't many inovative acts there's a sense of melody that's particular to them. ( i don't know if i made myself clear) i mean, you know when a band comes from france.
today's post is about the married monk, a band that's quite inovative and that has been around since 1993 and made quite a lot of things: a pop album, another full of ballads, another with rock'n'roll songs. they also collaborated with yann tiersen that wanted to do something diferent of what he used to do. they toured together and recorded an album called all is calm in 1999...
at a first listening someone may say that they are an indiepop band but, as you can hear in 'elephant people', there's a lot of surprises waiting...
i'd say that elephant people is a soundtrack album. they go from rock songs to orchestrated, jazzy tunes, saxophone solos and upbeat electronics. it's quite an experience because after the first tracks, when you get the sense of the album, you don't know what to expect next.
half of the songs are accompanied by christian quermalet (sometimes breathy, sometimes hauting) voice speaking. there's also instrumental songs like the beautiful and slow 'conversation piece'. and there's three or four tracks with christian showing his singing skills. 'elephant people' is a great song with awesome guitar hooks.
the married monks are, with no doubt, a band that's not worried about labels and because of that their music is quite atypical as you can see, listening to a full of contrasts and multicolored album.
01. spiel
02. merricks meditations
03. introducing prodigies
04. brother j
05. me and me
06. clementines song
07. double doom
08. conversation piece
09. hail 2 the hound man
10. delphines angels
11. elephant people
12. pretty lads
13. clementines words
myspace
buy it
here's a video from a sideshow opera where the married monk played some songs from elephant people. the conception is from renaud cojo. the characters you see are from the cover of the album. no, i haven't uploaded the wrong cover art, it's because the cd comes with 8 cardboard photos of diferent circus-esque characters.
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