Reviews

Malajube

Trompe L'oeil

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Review Date: 2006-04-29

I’ve been living in Montreal for about 7 months now and the experience has been interesting. It also ensures that I have heard Malajube. The single gets played fairly often on French Radio, and they have a MySpace and have to say I’m pretty addicted to it. I sort of see it as like a garden. Anyways- so yeah, I’ve heard Malajube.

Today I actually finally read the lyrics to Malajube, and it’s sort of been a different experience since. Not that the music was bad, but I experienced the typical Anglo-phonic disconnection from the French that the lyrics are written in. And I will say that there is sort of a feel to French-Canadian music that is entirely different from English-Canada’s music.

I’m not a fan of a couple of songs on this album. Montreal -40 C comes to mind. Though I will say this about the song. See, it’ really happy and poppy, but the deal with the lyrics, you see, they’re about not liking Montreal very much. To be completely Quebec happy, all lyrics will be referred to in french, and then with an English translation. But here’s the thing, my french sucks, so most of the time it’s going to be really approximate. Please don’t make fun of me. Thanks to Vincent, my French-Canadian friend who helped me by discerning the lyrics in the first place. In any case:

“Trop pauvre pour les pilules, j'fais la putain pourtant j'suis nul Et toutes ces choses que j'éjacule J'cours contre la montre, j'cours mais j'recule Oh Montréal T'es tellement froide “ {tr. Much too poor for the pills, I however make the whore, I am null and all these things which I ejaculate. I run against the watch, I run but I move back. Oh Montreal you are so cold}
And
“Ton visage sur mon magazine Ton palmarès de concubines” {tr. Your face on my magazine Your prize list of concubines}

Are brilliant in the sense that since this has become popular, people must like it, so, Montreal has a big self-hate complex. That’s interesting, isn’t it?. Or maybe French-Radio is the only radio in town that still allows truth as beauty. I don’t know. As I say, I don’t listen to a lot of french radio, but it makes me happy that they would play this tune. Even if it is far too catchy for me.

The rest of the album, though, is diverse enough that even as an ignorant English dude hearing the lyrics as only having some sort of meaning it kept my attention. I must say that with or without the lyrics, etienne d’aout has me coming back to it again and again. The first time I heard that, the melody line interested me. But now I can’t stop listening to it. The lyrics here are a little more loving, if brooding. I like this particular take on the song too... “Parce qu'on aime Fondre en larmes sous les draps On s'aime comme ci comme ca Pour une dernier fois” {tr. Because we like melting in tears under the sheets(?) we like comme ci comme ca for one last time.}

Note, I didn’t translate comme ci comme ca because there isn’t an English word that makes more sense than that. “Mediocrity” was the best that came to me, but seriously? I like this term. The thing I like about french is that it takes a long time to explain simple things, but shortly covers over entire days worth of emotions. Comme ci comme ca can last you an entire day here. Anyways, “mediocrity” doesn’t sound as cool as comme ci comme ca. The melody has been haunting me wherever I go the last couple of days.

The entire album is fairly imaginative, which I really like. Songs never stay the same for very long, and they take you places, with dynamics and all. The musician-ship is also pretty stellar on this album. I don’t connect with all of it yet, but I have a feeling this is a slow burn. Certain songs grab me at once, but others sort of linger in the background. I like to call this sound the “Muse-if-they-were-born-in-French-Canada.” This is a distinction that has to be made, because they don’t spend all their time sounding like radiohead, and ripping off Schubert. It’s funny how much I really hate on Muse, because I do like them, but for weird moments, and their playing... which is pretty damn intense. Same here. There is nothing like a band that knows how to play on dynamics. Nothing. Especially one that does it well.

The song-craft is also pretty stellar, and they manage to convey quite a bit of energy at many times on the recording, which I also like.

Also, they decide to give us hip hop halfway through.

The lyrics? I’m not sure what I think of them. Because I’m not sure that a) I understand them, nor b) I know enough about the french-music scene to tell you if they are particularly inventive. I do like the fact that the imagery is different than what I usually hear in English. I’ve honestly had enough of the “I’m falling”/”I’ve fallen”/”Lift Me Up”/”Help me”/”Save me” metaphor. I like that while the whole of English radio falls into a quagmire of mediocrity(I”m sorry. I’m getting excited), the main participants in the creation of said cesspool are all singing about how they’re falling, or dying, or whatever.

Score: 8.7

- Bobwell Gaines