Rive Gauche - Phillipe Chany (Dark Entries)

Title: Rive Gauche

Artist: Phillipe Chany

Label: Dark Entries

Cat Number: DE-122

Genre: French Disco Fusion

SIDE A

Aimez-moi

Fiction

Cinecitta

Cairo Connection

SIDE B

La mystique du mâle

Castor

Unsquare Dance

Lettre à Monsieur le Législateur (De la loi sur les stupéfiants)

Dark Entries isn’t all about reissuing italo classics, as this 1983 solo project from French songwriter, film music composer and producer Phillipe Chany proves. Seemingly revived just as much for its technical specifications as much as its curiosity value, it is French with a capital F, emphasizing the chanson just as much as everything else and blending the modern with the traditional. There’s even a passage read from “L’ombilic des Limbes” by Antonin Artaud. The attention to detail is great, and evokes a sense of nostalgia, not gained from a long lost dance in a disco on the Cote d’Azur, but more than likely a vague inflection from a transistor providing the ambience on holiday. Dark Entries are doing an interesting job curating the recent past and, while some of it will be hit and miss, it’s always interesting.