The Rodeo - "On the Radio" (2010)

Dorothée Hannequin loves anagrams. She rearranged the letters of her first name to create The Rodeo, the solo persona she adopted after the break-up of her previous band, France’s majestic indie rock shoegaze titans Hopper. Citing the American country music allusions suffused in her new pseudonym, Dorothée announced her departure from the pillowy comfort of Hopper’s sonic lushness by stripping her new songs naked: mostly just acoustic guitar, some piano, and her moody, expressive vocals.

The seven songs on The Rodeo’s “My First EP” (Emergence, 2007) retained Hopper’s emotional power despite this hushed new setting. Dorothée delivered her confrontational lyrics with wrenching emotional bluntness, as the songs encircled various interpersonal proximities, from intimacy to breathless distance to the confusing places in-between.

Meanwhile, the anagrams kept coming. Last year while absorbed in the recording of her full-length debut, Dorothée read a magazine article that referred to a “maelstrom,” a word which at once struck her as a fitting description of her swirling, often turbulent music. Then the letters of “maelstrom” themselves spun around wildly in her mind, resolving to “maestro,” a title with which Dorothée anointed herself in the studio for the duration of the recording, with appropriate measures of authority, delight, and humor. Even after recording, the images stuck: Dorothée named The Rodeo’s new album “Music Maelstrom,” released earlier this year on France’s Emergence Records. And she is still, as she says, the “maestro.”

First single “On The Radio,” is a twisted, bluesy sea shanty, about a love affair so far out to sea that distress calls have no chance of reaching help on the shore. The Rodeo adds new instrumentation—banjo, tambourine, some truly creepy organ—but the music still retains the sparse feel of her earlier solo work. The song boasts what is quite possibly the Rodeo's best chorus, where a haunting, tremolo guitar wails behind Dorothée’s deadpan delivery: “I'm not even dead, but I scream to stay out of this nightmare.”

Recently, Dorothée spoke with Pop de trop in between sets of European tour dates promoting her new record. Here she answers “5 Questions for The Rodeo.”

Congrats on your first full-length, “Music Maelstrom.” How did the recording process differ for a solo release (even though you had friends to help) than when you were in Hopper?
Being in this solo project is obviously quite different from my former band. Decisions are made more easily, there’s no need to practice that much, and when I screw up, I can only take it out on myself.

How long did the record take to complete?

This recording didn’t take months. I wanted something very spontaneous, like a photograph of that moment in my life. Even though many musicians took part in the recording, I’m still the “maestro” when it comes to the final decision!

Talk a little about your process for writing songs: do you write the lyrics first, or the melody, where do you get ideas, do you write on guitar, piano, etc. etc. etc.

Each song is born in my head first. Then I try to remember it for several days. If I still have the song in my head, it means that it’s the right one. Afterwards, the musicians who usually work with me come into the process and give a whole body to the skeleton I’ve created.

How do you decide if you are going to write lyrics in French or English?

I’ve always listened to music written in English. This comes from my musical backgrounds. Even my family used to make me listen to bands like Pink Floyd, The Supremes, The Doors… It’s also just a question of the sound of the words. I think that English fits better with my music.

Who are some of your favorite musicians that you look to for inspiration?

One of my favorite singers is Otis Redding. In fact, I’ve always been impressed by artists with guts, artists who really live through their music: vulnerable people, open-hearted people. One of my favorites today is maybe Jack White. He’s a good songwriter and he’s also inspired by different arts. He is not afraid of doing mainstream collaborations and he’s not stuck in the 60’s or 70’s, as his music might suggest.

click the image below to listen to song previews or buy the album:

Marie-Flore - "Sweet to the Taste" (2009)

Let's face it: I'm no rock critic. Last week's fawning, superlative review of my now-beloved Le Prince Miiaou illustrates my unwillingness (inability?) to explore the music I like from the inside out. Instead, I swallow whole the bio's backstory, quite happy to orbit the permanent, unmoving celestial bodies in some kind of pre-Copernican celestial construct, where the artist calls the shots and I just connect the stars' dots.

Anyway. This week isn't going to be much different.

Or is it? I bought Marie-Flore's 2009 EP, "More Than Thirty Seconds If You Please," and the liner notes contain very little received wisdom for me to rapturously repeat. But check it: Marie-Flore's tousled mullet and black-underscored eyes make her a ringer for "Brass in Pocket"-era Chrissie Hynde, and she sings like a delicate Polly Jean Harvey fronting an analog Portishead.

EP opener "Trapdoor" (which I almost chose for this post) is a brazen declaration of brittle fragility. I can't help but notice, as someone who's trying to talk about Marie-Flore, the chorus' laconic line "Well, you probably don't know me that well," while a sad, trumpet-like wordless backing vocal emits a gorgeous, deflated wail.

Broken ballad "Sweet to the Taste" is a marvel; a Pop de Trop chart-topper. The song opens with a deceptive hush before turning towards its full-disclosure pre-chorus: "If I'm sweet to the taste, I can get sour." The lyric's poetry workshop sincerity belies the claustrophobic regret with which Marie-Flore sings it. This is no preemptive, told-you-so warning shot from a serial commitment-phobe. Instead, she sounds morbidly apologetic, a Dr. Jekyll begging for forgiveness even as he's changing into Mr. Hyde.

At the chorus, the song itself transforms: percussive handclaps jump out and startle, the sound you'd make to scare off a cat. Marie-Flore's overdubbed backing vocals sing something that sounds like "Ow, ow" as she repeats the line "Now go outside, because you block my view." A quietly distorted, staccato guitar points toward the door on a single note.

Seconds later, the song simmers down. "Handle me with care, my man," Marie-Flore implores.

After all, if she's sour to the taste, she can get sweet.

click the image below to listen to song previews or buy the album:

Le Prince Miiaou - "Football Team" (2009)

A self-described awkward introvert, Maud-Elisa Mandeau, mastermind behind the dramatic indie-rock alter-ego "Le Prince Miiaou," is no stranger to alienation. Growing up in the backwater town of Jonzac in southwestern France, the young Mandeau drifted from scene to scene and hobby to hobby, never quite clicking with anything she tried.

Then her brother, on a whim, asked her to sing in his metal band. She was 15 years old.

To hear Mandeau tell it, that's when she discovered a passion that she'd never before experienced. Devoting her life to music, she embraced every facet of her new obsession, finding joy in such mundane tasks as changing guitar strings and learning music software on her laptop.

After secondary school, she moved to Paris to continue her education, but music came first. As she got to know the city's competitive music scene, she developed her character "Le Prince Miiaou" to help boost her confidence onstage. The more outrageous her persona became, the more it fueled her songwriting. (My favorite of Miiaou's outfits: combination snorkel mask and little red riding hood cape!)

After a strong self-released debut that, without label support, attracted critical praise in France, Le Prince Miiaou released her second album, "Safety First," in 2009. Joined by Norbert Labrousse (drums) and François-Pierre Fol (cello, bass), Mandeau builds on her debut across all areas: singing, guitar playing, and, yes, overall confidence (the snorkel mask is clearly working).

The costumes may be goofy, but Le Prince Miiaou means business. She sings like Cat Power's Chan Marshall fronting a slightly more refined version of the White Stripes. The band approaches authenticity without getting stuck in retro-themed formalist poses. In fact the most "classic" characteristic of "Safety First" is its thrilling consistency: the back-to-back-to-back excellence of the songs recalls the heyday of the LP-as-art.

Still, Mandeau's sense of alienation has been hard to shake. The plaintive "Football Team" channels the heartbreak of an outsider's sour-grapes loneliness using two chords, Mandeau's gorgeous voice, and the repeated chant "They don't want me on their football team." The guitar swells, the cello cries, and even that snorkel mask gets a little foggy.

click the image below to listen to song previews or buy the album: