Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 09/25/2006
The reissue of
Michel Polnareff's self-titled
psychedelic pop masterpiece from 1971 is both a welcome addition to the CD canon, and probably more than a little off-putting to many members of the Elephant 6 collective, as well as to
Stereolab and others who have cribbed its originality and vision, and tried to claim it as their own. Others (DJs like the ever-cranky
Gilles Peterson) can be imagined grumbling about how another obscure pillar of their record collections is now available to us plebians who weren't there -- of course, none of them were, either.
Polnareff's is composed and recorded as all of a piece. The lushly layered textures bring in everyone from
Serge Gainsbourg and
Burt Bacharach, to funky
discotheque, along with intimations of the
pop of
Sandie Shaw and
Françoise Hardy,
The Turtles,
Tommy Boyce and
Bobby Hart, and, of course,
Scott Walker. Tracks such as
"Petite, Petite," "Nos Mots D'Amour," and
"Monsieur L'Abbe" reveal that
Polnareff would err on packing his tracks with everything he could fit into his grandly
baroque, kitschy schema, rather than have left anything to chance. It's overblown and excessive to be sure -- in a manner, it's like an early model for the excesses of
Fleetwood Mac's
Tusk -- but it is also so bloody well-executed and produced, it cannot be anything but brilliant. This is pretentious
French psychedelic soul at its most garish and essential.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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