Megan Washington, Katie Noonan and Lisa Mitchell will feature on the ‘Melodie Francaise’ project with the already announced Gossling and Alexander Gow.
‘Melodie Francaise’ features Australian artists singing French songs. The artists involved often worked with French tutors in the studio and via Skype to perfect the language and diction before recording the songs.
Gossling and Alexander Gow even travelled to Paris to made the video for their song ‘La Minute De Silence’.
Megan Washington recorded ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ with Deep Sea Arcade. The original 1967 song was written by Serge Gainsbourg and recorded by Brigitte Bardot. “It was funny, I asked my dad who happens to be fluent in French to read out the lyrics and send me a recording from Sydney. It was cool hanging out in the London studio with Megan and obsessively studying his pronunciation like a cross continental French lesson. Also in the original version the verses are delivered as spoken word and I wanted to make them more melodic in our version. Meg and I had fun figuring out those call and response melodies.”
Katie Noonan sang ‘Les Feuilles Mortes” with her band Elixir. “I grew up listening to the wonderful Nat King Cole with my Dad and I first heard him sing this song and was instantly transported to a special place. Years later I discovered the French version which also included the verse (which is rarely done) and fell in love with it! It felt very special to do it with my trio Elixir and take it into our musical landscape,” she said.
The full Mélodie Française tracklisting is:
1. Gossling & Oh Mercy – La minute de silence
2. The Jezabels – Morgane de toi
3. Thelma Plum – La Vie en rose
4. Dappled Cities – Sexy Boy
5. Kate Miller-Heidke – Il n’y a pas d’amour heureux
6. Husky – Le Berger
7. Deep Sea Arcade feat. Megan Washington – Bonnie and Clyde
8. Lisa Mitchell – Bang Bang
9. Big Scary – Je t’aime… moi non plus
10. Jinja Safari feat. Okenyo – Le temps de l’amour
11. Elixir feat. Katie Noonan – Les feuilles mortes
12. Edward Deer – Belles! Belles! Belles!
13. SoKo & The Walking Who – Mini, mini, mini
14. Vance Joy – La Mer
Watch the Gossling and Alexander Gow Noise11 interview and performance of ‘La Minute De Silence’ here:
