D/B/A: Underappreciated

On the mystical wonders of Laurence Vanay (Or Whatever Her Name Is)

When the Jeopardy category is “French Pop of the 1970s,” I fold fairly quickly. Beyond the usual names – Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, Jane Birkin, Brigitte Fontaine, a few others who might have influenced Stereolab – I lack a solid grasp of that universe. I get that it is a universe, involving traditionalists and renegades and songwriters who combined elements of rock and the orderly beauty of chanson into something distinctly French.

While we’re in disclosure mode, I should probably add that a preponderance of the French pop and rock I’ve heard has not exactly pinned me to my seat.

Until, that is, some weeks ago, when doing routine scouting for artists I don’t know whose works might be recommendable here on Echo Locator. The Internet – including those easy-to-loathe streaming services – is excellent for this, even if you avoid the stock recommendation algorithms (I do!): Starting on the page of an artist I’ve heard of, I scroll to Related Artists and browse across unfamiliar-to-me names, following links to check out tracks more or less randomly. (When doing this on streaming platforms, it’s necessary to leave the music playing and search for information about the artist and the work, because including any context alongside the audio is just Too Much Data Shoveling for the Spotifys.).

After a long tedious stroll through European progressive rock of the early ‘70s, I landed on an early record by the French band Magma. One of the Related Artists was Laurence Vanay. Clicked on what looked like the debut project, Galaxies (cover image above) and was transported into a rivetingly textured but somehow less pretentious — and actually downright breezy — version of prog-rock. This music felt like a wing of prog that had been abandoned long ago. It’s more celestial, less rooted in technical acumen. It’s got typical prog elements – a spiky, impressively agile Hammond organ threads through many tracks – as well as breathy, searching wordless vocal flights that unspool over Bach-like yet somewhat unconventional chord sequences. Here’s a representative example:

Turns out Laurence Vanay is one of the noms de rock of Jacqueline Thibault, who was married to Magma bassist Laurent Thibault. In the early ‘70s, the couple became stakeholders in Château d’Hérouville, the legendary studio where David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Tom Jones, the Bee Gees (circa Saturday Night Fever), Kiki Dee, Hawkwind and many others recorded.

The Thibaults ran the studio (which included a mobile truck) as a business, of course, but like many artist/operators, took advantage of downtime to work on their original projects. These included Laurent Thibault’s image-rich 1978 solo album Mais On Ne Peut Pas Rêver Tout Le Temps, film music credited to Jacqueline Thibault, short-lived experiments Jacqueline made under the name Maire–Mennesson and four Laurence Vanay albums – though the followup to Galaxies, 1975’s Evening Colours, was first issued under the artist name Gate Way.

The assorted monikers and scattered label affiliations probably didn’t help to create a coherent career narrative for either Thibault. But the music they made does. It’s energetic yet delicate, contemplative and throttling at the same time. There’s a great expansiveness of spirit that prevails across all the projects – the records seem borne out of late-night leaps of faith and low-pressure experiments. Even when the songs are intricate and deeply compositional, the musicians approach them with a sense of adventure. We hear people digging in while playing together, and it’s clear they’re enjoying the journey — together. There’s little of the fussiness that’s often associated with French pop.

The Vanay sound is somewhere in the neighborhood of early Renaissance and (to lesser degree) Fairport Convention, with acoustic guitars and multiple keyboards establishing the outlines while flute, snarly lead guitar and analog synthesizers provide extravagant colors and textures. Check out the surge of the groove – and the lavish, distantly CSNY-like vocal harmonies – on this wondrous little excursion from Evening Colors.

 Laurent Thibault’s work, which involves fretless bassist Francis Moze (Gong) and strings and voices, turns on fleeting dissonances and disarming rhythmic juxtapositions (check the swinging ride cymbal on the title track).

We’ll close with a piano-based piece from Le Petite Fenetre, which first saw release in 2015. (There’s got to be a story there….). It’s a trip down an adjacent rabbit hole with many of the same musicians, another moment of astounding creativity that’s revered by deep diggers and historians – but can, of course, be encountered by luck, on a random whim. Anytime.