Isabelle Antena
Sous Influences
Les Disques du Crepuscule
LP (due soon)/CD/DD
Out Feb 3rd 2017
This year marks 35 years since Antena's debut release, the balmy electro-samba single The Boy From Ipanema and its exotic parent EP Camino Del Sol. Since then, mainstay Isabelle has recorded and issued dozens of albums, singles and remixes that have trickled into hip DJ's crates and hipper label's compilations. Often paying homage to jazz, Latin and soul sources on earlier albums, Antena continues this trend on Sous Influence with consummate and triumphant ease.
Originally intended for sessions with side-project Pause Cafe, Antena and husband Denis Moulin have wisely chosen to nurture the songs themselves with a carefully selected array of crack musicians plus occasional guest contributor, the house-music producer J.T.Donaldson. Despite, or maybe because of, the recording locations of Goa, Brussels, Southern France and Dallas, the whole set feels very intimate.
Rather like stumbling out of the cold into a basement bar for warmth and sustenance, songs like Sous Les Paves, Senza Fine and Te Garder place a reassuring arm around tired shoulders like an old friend with their nods to samba, ballads and easy-swinging jazz. Head back out of the same bar onto street level and you encounter an ideal soundtrack to urban bustle in Over You, Easily Happy and the sumptuous cover of Shuggie Otis' Aht Ah Mi Hed. Other covers include Brel's Isabelle and Dankworth and Pinter's All Gone, both ably treated with respect.
But perhaps the album's centrepiece is the woozy epic My Lexicon, a sort-of bossa-nova take on My Favourite Things. It's too obvious to liken this to a dawdle along a sun-drenched beach but it's a starting point for investigating her previous singles Seaside Weekend and Little Fish From Southern Seas.
Mesmerising, sensuous and compelling, Sous Influences is more than just hip Latin-jazz musings - it's another solid addition to an already consistent back-catalogue. 9/10
Sous Influences
Les Disques du Crepuscule
LP (due soon)/CD/DD
Out Feb 3rd 2017
Originally intended for sessions with side-project Pause Cafe, Antena and husband Denis Moulin have wisely chosen to nurture the songs themselves with a carefully selected array of crack musicians plus occasional guest contributor, the house-music producer J.T.Donaldson. Despite, or maybe because of, the recording locations of Goa, Brussels, Southern France and Dallas, the whole set feels very intimate.
Rather like stumbling out of the cold into a basement bar for warmth and sustenance, songs like Sous Les Paves, Senza Fine and Te Garder place a reassuring arm around tired shoulders like an old friend with their nods to samba, ballads and easy-swinging jazz. Head back out of the same bar onto street level and you encounter an ideal soundtrack to urban bustle in Over You, Easily Happy and the sumptuous cover of Shuggie Otis' Aht Ah Mi Hed. Other covers include Brel's Isabelle and Dankworth and Pinter's All Gone, both ably treated with respect.
But perhaps the album's centrepiece is the woozy epic My Lexicon, a sort-of bossa-nova take on My Favourite Things. It's too obvious to liken this to a dawdle along a sun-drenched beach but it's a starting point for investigating her previous singles Seaside Weekend and Little Fish From Southern Seas.
Mesmerising, sensuous and compelling, Sous Influences is more than just hip Latin-jazz musings - it's another solid addition to an already consistent back-catalogue. 9/10