Mick Harvey Announces Vol 4 of Gainsbourg Covers, 'Intoxicated Women' Out November 4

MICK HARVEY ANNOUNCES VOLUME 4 OF SERGE GAINSBOURG TRANSLATIONS INTOXICATED WOMEN OUT NOVEMBER 4, 2016

Photo credit: L.J.Spruyt / L.J.Spruyt Photography

“Harvey is a cool, calm, plainspoken singer; his true voice has always come through his sense of arrangement, and his ability to render exquisite beauty and apocalyptic clamor with the same brushstroke.” - Pitchfork It has taken 20 years for Mick Harvey to resume his project of translating Serge Gainsbourg’s songs into English, and following June’s release of Volume 3, Delirium Tremens, Mick Harvey has now announced the final in the series, Volume 4, Intoxicated Women, out on November 4, 2016. Listen to a sampler for Intoxicated Women HERE. Intoxicated Women contains many duets and songs written by Gainsbourg, mostly during the 60s, in a period where he was focusing his songwriting on singers such as France Galle, Juliette Greco and most famously, Brigitte Bardot. Here Harvey has enlisted the talents of guest singers Channthy Kak (Cambodian Space Project), Australian singers Xanthe Waite (Terry, Primo), Sophia Brous, Lyndelle-Jayne Spruyt, Jess Ribeiro and the German chanteuse Andrea Schroeder, plus a special appearance by Harvey’s son, Solomon. The album opens with a stunning version of “Je T’aime… (Moi non plus)” – here titled “Ich Liebe Dich… (Ich Dich Auch Nicht)” - rendered in the sexiest German imaginable by the divine Ms. Schroeder and culminates with “Cargo Cult,” the closing track from the classic Melody Nelson album. In between we are treated to a smorgasbord of Gainsbourg gems in English (with a bit of Khmer thrown in). Mick Harvey explains, “After the initial recordings for Delirium Tremens, JP Shilo and I continued investigating the duets and female songs, many of which were unknown to me. So it became a voyage of discovery into quite a lot of material I hadn’t heard before. There are even a couple of songs for which the only versions existing from the 60s are from TV performances Serge gave.” [“The Drowned One” (La Noyée) and “Wolfy Teeth” (Dents de Lait, Dents de Loup)] Work began on what would become Volumes 3 and 4 in late 2015. Recording in Melbourne with J.P. Shilo (with whom Harvey also worked on Rowland S. Howard’s Pop Crimes) and the rest of his Antipodean-based live band, 10 songs were tracked at Birdland Studios. The project then relocated to Berlin where a further 9 songs were recorded with Toby Dammit (The Stooges, Residents) and Bertrand Burgalat (of French label Tricatel), who was the string arranger on the first 2 volumes. The resultant recordings served to whet Harvey’s appetite for more, and work almost immediately continued back in Melbourne in order to have enough material to fill two new volumes. Along with principle musical collaborator, Shilo, and Melbourne based musicians Glenn Lewis and Hugo Cran, Harvey enlisted the aforementioned female singers to help complete this final volume in the series. Praise for Volume 3 Delirium Tremens AllMusic – “Gainsbourg’s work is now often recorded in English, but Harvey remains one of his finest interpreters.”  The Guardian – “a revelation and a joy” Record Collector – New Album of the Month “In lesser hands, the marriage of humour and existentialist angst may have been lost” The Quietus – “…there is an energy that comes from the confidence of experience… Harvey makes each song here his own.” Uncut – “Harvey’s intimate understanding of Serge’s rich catalogue allows him to smother markedly different compositions with a menacing Bad seeds swagger that unites Delirium Tremens.”

MICK HARVEY: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK MUTE: WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | TUMBLR | SOUNDCLOUD