RIP: Blossom Dearie, jazz-cabaret singer

By Kat Gardiner on 02-09-2009

On March 24, Histoire De Melody Nelson, Serge Gainsbourg's classic collaboration with chic lover Jane Birkin and composer Jean-Claude Vannier, will be released in the United States on Light in the Attic, 38 years after it was originally released. Often considered the psychedelic pillow-talker's greatest work and clocking in at a little under 30 minutes, Melody Nelson is a compact, semi-autobiographical, Nabokovian concept album that follows the story of Serge hitting a young nymph named Melody (Birkin) with his car and getting lost in a deeply passionate French love affair with her, much like the love affair (and later marriage) he had with Birkin, 20 years his junior.

The reissue includes deluxe packaging inspired by the original release, as well as extensive liner notes, translations of interviews, and lyric sheets that you'll still be reading long after the needle has started spinning itself in silent circles.

For a preview, I highly recommend checking out Melody, the 1972 musical of the album filmed. In it, you follow Serge driving and hitting Jane; strutting around before rotating red hearts; walking with her in and out of hallways filled with two-dimensional stills of nudes from the 1600s; then minutes of Birkin hypnotizing you with a repetitive hippie-mating-dance movements in white thigh-highs on top of wicked guitar solos. Hot.

Histoire De Melody Nelson tracklisting

1. Melody
2. LA Ballade de Melody Nelson
3. La Valse do Melody
4. Ah! Melody
5. L' Hotel Particulier
6. En Melody
7. Cargo Culte

By Mike McHugh on 02-09-2009

Esteemed members of the venerable Tiny Mix Tapes Tote Society: As you well know, 2008 was a landmark year for toters the world over. Who could forget the night Orson Tagliacozzo set New York’s Spring Tote Week ablaze with his unctuous bricolage of pre-Jacobin debasement and post-Verhoeven dystrophy? And what of that enchanting Milanese afternoon when Howard Bacchiglione sent Totecon ’08 into hysterics with a deeply sexual yet staunchly antediluvian tote-isé on Tajik callipygia? Yet despite its myriad peaks, this sublime year, of course, was not free of tragedy’s snares… we’ll see you and your immaculate totes at the crossroads, Sherman de Montefeltro.

Many of you thought that once ’09 wrenched ’08 of her breath with time’s annual garrote, toteistry’s zenith was poised to pass into memory. Fie! Fie I cried on you then, and an even more furious fie I cry on you now! Behold: Merge Records has proposed a challenge to tote, t-shirt and mixtape lovers alike. In conjunction with their mammoth 20-year anniversary compilation SCORE!, Merge wants you, the tote-adoring consumer, to shoulder the task of curating your very own Merge compilation CD. Simply pick 20 of your favorite songs available from Merge’s digital store, put them in a list, post them on Merge’s Make Your Own SCORE! message board, and wait until March. A winner will be chosen at random, and along with the dubious honor of having their mix made available for sale in the Merge digital store, they will also be able to choose between either some pitiful, most likely rabies-laden t-shirt or this exquisite, penguin-bearing tote.

Your choice is simple, seasoned toter. I know not how the rest of you feel about this “indie-rock,” but I do know this: Were that sumptuous tote possessed by the Morningstar himself, I would hasten forthright to Abaddon to massage his loins until his demon seed gushed an unholy fountain upon all the damned. I know what I must do, and I trust you do as well. Semper Tote!