Pierre de Gaillande Sings Georges Brassens

From the 1950s through the late '70s, Georges Brassens redefined French chanson. He was an anarchist bard whose songs were sometimes raunchy, sometimes polemic, often poignant, and always steeped in classic French poetry. His songs, unlike those of Jacques Brel or Serge Gainsbourg, never became known outside of France, mostly because of the language barrier. Now, Franco-American singer and composer Pierre de Gaillande has taken on the impossible task of translating Brassens' songbook, to astonishing results. He has stuck to the rhyming scheme and verse length of the original songs, thus matching the melodies perfectly. He has re-arranged the music with a cinematic sensibility, using a combination of guitars, clarinets, lap steel, and charango. The best way to describe the record is to compare it to the perfect film adaptation of a literary classic sung by the offspring of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.