Miss you

L’actualité me dicte de rester dans la thématique « musique posthume ». Radio France accueillait en effet Samedi dernier Jason Lytle, Troy von Balthazar and the Color bars experience, soit les chanteurs de Grandaddy et Chokebore accompagnés d’un orchestre de chambre, interprétant l’album Figure 8 d’Elliott Smith (projet monté pour le Printemps de Bourges 2015).

Troy et Jason - DR Julien Bourgeois

Moment assez exceptionnel car, bien que s’agissant d’une « commande »,  la qualité des interprètes, des arrangements et avant tout des compositions était bien là. Si la voix de Jason Lytle colle d'avantage à celle d'Elliott Smith, il est toutefois intéressant d'écouter les variations qu'introduit le chant de Troy Von Balthazar. Bonne nouvelle, la session a été enregistrée, et diffusée lundi dans l’émission Label Pop de France Musique.

Pour le podcast, c'est ici!

Forcément, ça donne envie de réécouter Figure 8 (paru 15 ans plus tôt, en 2000)

Elliott Smith devait mourir le 21 octobre 2003, à l’âge de 34 ans, des suites de deux coups de couteau portés à la poitrine.

, 

Aujourd'hui encore, il est possible de se recueillir le long de Sunset Boulevard à Los Angeles, à l’endroit où la photo de pochette de Figure 8 a été prise.

Once when you were younger

Once when you were younger, you could make things move.
Now that you're older, you're resting.
You used to have a special touch that covered over all of us.
Now we only see you when you're drunk.
Oh fuck it, put your guitar away and go upstairs to rest,
tomorrow we will see you if you want.

Once when you were younger, you could make things move.
Now that you're older, you're resting.
Your music does impressive things
and holds you quiet with its wings.
(Tired, tired, its over, its over)

Troy von Balthazar - You, when you're drunk
s/t (Olympic, 2005)
www.myspace.com/troyvonbalthazar

Troy Von Balthazar était hier sur la scène de la maroquinerie avec son groupe Chokebore. Il sortira un nouve album (solo) au mois de juin prochain.

I want everything magnified

The world is so big that we can't find each other.
Soon it will be too late we won't be young together.
I want everything perfectly aligned in my life.
I want everything magnified.
I hold you like a butterfly and squeeze with all my might.
You make me want to multiply, the warm exploding light.
Danger, danger, there you go.
I thought that you know
I wanted everything perfectly aligned in my life;
I want everything magnified.
I want everything magnified.

Troy von Balthazar - Magnified
s/t (Olympic, 2005)
www.myspace.com/troyvonbalthazar


TVB était hier en concert au Nouveau Casino.
Belles aisance et prestance sur scène, à tel point que j'ai peiné à reconnaître la personne un poil timide que je recevais la semaine passée dans Top Tape.
Malgré cela, il me semble que ses chansons gagneraient tout de même à être produite autrement, et lui, à être accompagné sur scène.

Voici d'ailleurs la chanson ci-dessus, dans une version alternative, plus rythmée et moins plombante que sur l'album.

Aux lecteurs :
PS1 : N'est-ce pas Adeline F. dans cette vidéo? (en noir)
PS2 : Quelle a été la chanson de Chokebore, reprise par Troy lors de ce concert?

I am a deserter

Top Tape Vol.15 est en ligne !
Featuring Troy von Balthazar (ex - Chokebore), pour ceux qui ont suivi.
C'était un peu difficile de faire cohabiter un invité et le concept de mixtape, on s'était alors mis d'accord sur le fait qu'en plus de la session, Troy lirait des extraits de son livre.

Je vous laisse écouter. Moi, je l'ai lu et relu ce matin. Dans "3Girls", Troy évoque Anna, Emilie, Véronique... et les endroits dans lesquels il a séjourné.
Il parle également Musique et inspiration :

All day I was in a fog, all yesterdays and the day before and last weeks and more. Then while pacing for hours through the grass outside talking myself out loud, the fog started to clear. Like fog clearing around a car. I was on the other side and a thousand ideas whipping into me and touching my guitar. Now the songs come together.

Each song cancels the last one out completely. I'll find clarity again. It's not hard for me. It's a new found gift.

I hear a noise but the sound is connected to a visual image. The muscles react to the pressure of the air being pushed but that is all. A signal grows bigger and bigger, cleaner and cleaner, photographic still. The background is fading away as the clean picture begins to fill with color. Until suddenly I am staring at a glowing crisp idea. All around me the images dance with corresponding sounds. The sweet delight of clear memory.

I awoke in the very early morning, and all around mea giant wax comb. A yellow octagon of isolation, its walls made from brain fluids and mucus. I've built myself into myself, and the angels rise from the floorboards. Just above us they burst into light. All around me glowing red embers.

It's a power the breaking of wants. It's a power, the thud inside that helps me be alone. It turns people away from me again and again.
The pattern is repeated, it's a power.

I don't have to kneel to face the deep howl of nothingness. I don't have to be naked to look over into the black endlessness.

I'll sleep for as long as my unconscious can hold me.

[...]

I am a deserter. I've left the worlds. I've broken through the fan of concerns. Clarity in all directions.

There are five songs playling in my head, they cross each other and mate, their offspring will be beautiful.

I'm not afraid to make it simple now. Just a few odd notes that have been ringing quietly in my ears since childhood, sweet little phrases bursting with an unequaled life. They are the sounds of my last few moments in life. They are the sounds that I will hear as my body dies, as my brain is spinning in recall. They will be with me and guide my body when i finally stops. And all that will be left behind me is a string of sad songs.

There is nothing to advertise when the fire licks the arm.

Avec tout ça, Troy von Balthazar a deux albums de prêt. Juste pas de maison de disques, ce qui paraît assez incroyable... Dommage, en tout cas. D'ailleurs, il n'a pas de maison tout court non plus : ça fait 3 - 4 ans qu'il est sur les routes.

Bien aimé le : "I wrote this song when i was leaving in my car in California. It wasn't really that long ago". Du coup, avec ses 25m², Joseph Leon passe désormais pour un nanti.

Troy Von Balthazar, 3EP
www.myspace.com/troyvonbalthazar
en concert le 17 avril au Nouveau Casino

Top Tape Vol.15
http://www.radiocampusparis.org/?cat=157

Working eats my Soul

Un fim expérimental de Paul Durango feat. Troy von Balthazar. Ce teaser et sa bande-son me font frissonner à chaque fois.
Play it loud...

Geneva

Pour une fois, une chanson dont les paroles ne me touchent pas. Mais je rentre de Genève...

Geneva was just like you'd expect it,
full of radiance,
full of low lights and sad girls,
I'm not alone when I'm without you.
I'm not alone when I'm without you

{ It's the right age.. You want someone to hold you and say you're not alone.....you are not alone }

My life is just like when you left it,
full of rain filled with low lights and sad girls,
I'm not alone when I'm without you

{ You want someone to hold you and say you're not alone well you are not alone }

But in the south,
in the south the ocean fuses and you dream in little ripples,
I'm not alone when I'm without you...

Chokebore - Geneva
it's a miracle (Pale Blue, 2002)
www.myspace.com/chokebore
photo by www.myspace.com/flimekluth

Bad people happen to things like me

Bad people happen to things like me.
I broke across the room in waves and drown you in your dress.
Bad people happen to things like me.
Dogs appear and disappear.

It's push, push but we don't kiss.
Everything I say to you is code for something else.
Why do you make love like this?
I can see the subtlety, the rising sea, suddenly.
It's push, push but we don't kiss.
Everything I say to you is code for something else.

Sleep master, sleep.
Erase something, erase something, erase something sweet.

Bad people happen to things like me.
Bad people happen to things like me.
I broke across the room in waves
and drown you in your dress.
Bad people happen to things like me.

Troy von Balthasar - Dogs
s/t (Olympic Disk, 2005)
www.myspace.com/troyvonbalthazar