Search - Negresses Vertes :: 10 Remixes 1993

Un des meilleurs CD jamais acheté!

05/04/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ce CD est une merveille! Écoutez les paroles, et vous tomberez amoureux de ce groupe!La musique est intense, les paroles, le rythme, laissez vous charmer!"

For your late night listening pleasure

Jesse Kornbluth | New York | 01/24/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Esther Perel, the therapist who wrote Mating in Captivity, has a radical explanation for marital bed death. The problem, she says, is not that couples need to communicate more --- it's that they communicate too much. What they need is less chat and more distance, the better to generate some fantasies about their partner. If they must talk about their relationship, she writes, they should each get a hotmail account and use it only to write their lover. Oh, and only to talk about romance.



Interesting ideas. And ones you might think about the next time it's "date night" and there you are, Barry White CD in hand.



Ah, dear Barry. The maestro of love. Swirling violins, that butterfat voice, the rock-me lyrics. His is a formula that never fails: You melt into one another. Velvet ensues....



On the other hand, in the spirit of Dr. Perel, you might think: Barry White....been there, done that. A lot.



And you might have a treasonous thought: Is there anything else?



Not that there is anything wrong with Barry White, I hasten to say: He's in the rotation here as well, in keeping with my philosophy that cliches are not to be avoided, they're to be kissed on the mouth.



There's a recent addition to my collection of music for late night: remixes of some of the greater hits of Les Negresses Vertes. Remixes, as you know, are generally done to make music more suitable for dancing. That means the songs will be heavy on percussion, light on subtle lyrics. If you are a delicate soul --- or if your partner is a sensitive creature, prone to headaches --- read no further: This stuff is not for you.



Okay, so who are Les Négresses Vertes? In the 1980s, these French musicians were clowns and acrobats in the Cirque Zingaro. They got their name in 1987, when they dyed their hair green and went out clubbing. A bouncer threw them out, shouting "Sortez d'ici, les négresses vertes" ("Get out of here, you green n----s"). It was an amusing insult; why not elevate it to the band's name?



There was also a kind of sense in the name; this group had astonishing range. Spanish and gypsy rhythms, a splash of reggae and rai, a spoonful of medieval harmonies that melted into a hora --- add inconsequential lyrics and you had quite the show. The band was hot in Paris, huge in Beirut.



These remixes from their golden years --- 1987 to 1993 --- are destined for nights when you've had a tequila too many, nights when animal instinct trumps the spiritual connection. Oh, there are quiet moments and subtle effects, but they're just for texture. Fundamentally, this is about pile-driver percussion. I could go on, but surely you get the drift.



I have field-tested this music and pressed it on friends. Reaction is fairly uniform: In the morning, neither partner can quite look at the other. But that is not to say that Les Negresses Vertes have made anyone unhappy."

Mon dieu!

LUIS | MEXICO City | 08/21/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sometimes when one drops with this kind of stuff, just wonders why does bland mainstream music dares to exist? One of the best from all times, really I mean it!"