unedited extracts no.1 camille-le fil

For the want of much Glasto news, I thought that for now (or at least for a while) maybe I should carry on writing about music. And for this, a few scrapped,unedited extracts from the new book.  


Camille-Le Fil

  

 

 

An album that made me realise finally that a) not everything needs to be sung in English for it to be enjoyable and b) because of this, maybe the exact words don’t really matter at all. I have no idea about what Camille is singing about on this record (it’s in French). She could be running through her shopping list or giving us an especially complicated recipe; it could be a run through the telephone directory of a small town or maybe something really trite and soppy. It doesn’t matter one bit because her voice is so spectacular and soaring. Because she puts so much passion into it I do have a sense that what she is singing is important and meaningful. Maybe it’s all to do with the language after all. Maybe it’s my perceptions of French; it wouldn’t sound the same if she was from say, Wigan or Preston (although that would be an interesting option; maybe that’ll be the next thing-albums remixed with Northern accents).

What is remarkable to me and seems to run throughout most (but not all) of these albums that I’vewritten about is that they were unexpected. Unexpected in the sense that I’d never heard of some of these artists until I’d heard the albums; or if I had, then only in passing or that they’d not made much of an impression upon me. With this album by Camille (as well as, say Young Marble Giants "Colossal Youth" album) what is inspiring is that these records come out of seemingly nowhere and although, by and large,they’ve been made by people in their very early twenties, they are works that have stood the test of time. This is art that belies the relative immaturity of the artists; what’s truly staggering is that someone so young can have the vision to produce something so original and intense.

It is impossible just to pick one track off this record; you’d have to listen to the whole thing. (And that’s part of it; literally part of it. Although there are distinct songs and different tracks it’s all strung together by a low hum that’s playing in the background from the beginning the end of the album. This is the thread referred to in the album title but as I don’t speak French I’m not sure if that’s correct.)

It’s just a beautiful record.