Chansons de Films Des Années 30/40

COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Auvidis Travelling
WORKS: Simplet (excertps); La romance de Paris (excerpts); Circonstances attenuantes (excerpts)
CATALOGUE NO: K1508

Recorded sound is so cleaned-up these days that the hiss of needle on vinyl has become intensely nostalgic. The same can be said of soundtracks, which is why Auvidis’s ‘Movies To Listen To’ are doing so well.

Their latest release – Chansons de films des années 30/40 – comes with the added bonus of dialogue and noises off: the record reeks of Gauloises and calvados. And the sound quality is wonderfully crummy: tea-chest pianos, and bands whose mangled tones seem to emanate from a firmly-shut telephone box.

Here once more, amid birdsong and church bells tolling the Angelus, comes Fernandel, in the guise of a simpleton perched in an olive tree; here comes the inimitable, though much imitated, Charles Trenet, with that Gallic tremble which Alagna tries to recapture today. And here is Arletty – hard, rather than in her bewitching Enfants du paradis persona – and the great Yvonne Printemps, that quintessential voice of Parisian music hall.