Un Etretien avec Mark Mortimer. Part Un

The Midlands; an area of England best known for it's coal, industrial revolution and inflicting Lenny Henry and Jasper Carrot onto the World. It's also an area with a penchant for unearthing seminal British bands. From Dexy's to Sabbath, from Zeppelin to The Specials, middle England has spoiled us rotten down the years.

In keeping with this rich musical tradition , the old Kingdom of Mercia has provided us with another little gem. In fact, perhaps little isn't the correct word, as DC Fontana are a sprawling octopus of a band. Fusing everything from French cinematic jazz to South American psych and beyond, England's finest new Mod troubadours have just released their second LP La Contessa.  In keeping with the band's love for the continental, La Contessa is an Italian and French reworking of debut album Six Against Eight, complete with several new compositions, including new single, the instrumental 'Abbesses'.

The Soul Kitchen managed to catch up with bassist, founder and songwriter in chief Mark Mortimer for a special three part interview, tackling the subjects of the new album, kung fu, Parisian burlesque dancers and the future...

Soul Kitchen: Firstly, in the video for new tune 'Abbesses', you try your hand, unsuccessfully, at a spot of Kung Fu. Be honest, did you perform all your own stunts?

 Mark Mortimer: Of course! We do all our own stunts! Although my fight-acting was more of the “put ‘em up! Put ‘em up!” variety and I could hardly do it I was laughing that much. We staged the fight scenes in the middle of the road behind the church and we were continually interrupted by these dainty old French ladies taking their poodles on an early Sunday morning walk and before long a vintage vehicle rally came rolling by with dozens of these old cars driving past as we acted out the Avengers-like chops.

We had played a lively gig the night before in Paris and then foolishly only had a couple of hours sleep before setting off to begin the film shoot near the Sacré Coeur church so we were all a bit, err, bleary-eyed to say the least. As well as that the girls had nowhere to change so they climbed into their kinky cat suits in bushes just yards from one of Paris’ most popular tourist hang-outs.

Mimi (De Montmarte, France’s leading burlesque dancer) and Steve, our trumpet player, were particularly convincing with their fight scene. Steve stood there wielding his nun chucks like a violent expert and I thought to myself, maybe he has a darker past than I had even dared to think was possible.

SK: The new album, La Contessa, features Italian and French reworkings of songs from your debut album Six Against Eight. How was that as a recording experience? Something you'd be willing to do again?

MM: La Contessa is something I am proud of because it’s ludicrously ambitious and extremely unusual for a band from central England making a record that is sung mostly in French and Italian but I really think it works. I’ve always felt our music had a distinctively cinematic edge and as we were recording in Liverpool I spent hours dreaming up imaginary film storylines and plots while listening to the tracks we were creating.

While in Liverpool we flew out our friends Kicca Andriollo and her partner Oscar Marchioni to hang out with us and I originally thought we could have Kicca sing one or two tunes in French or Italian because she is bilingual and though coming from Vicenza in Italy now lives in Paris.

 When we play in France they sometimes join us on stage which is always amazing as they are both amazingly talented and they’ve become dear friends of ours. In fact ‘La Contessa’ is dedicated to their new born baby girl Loulou who entered this world just as we were finishing the record off.

As it turned out doing the foreign versions in Liverpool was made easier because the studio engineer, Ashley Martel, is a French guy so he could help translate the lyrics easily.

Kicca sang all the Italian material and lots of the French with Karla adding some more French vocals and then we contacted an actor called Michel Rousseau from Carpentras in Provence and he did the spoken word thing on my musical poem ‘Les Fantômes du Père Lachaise.’

He intuitively knew what I was after and managed to inject this Jacques Brel vibe into the track which was spot on.  Along with the Mellotron choir, accordion, psychedelic ebow guitar and Steve’s Spanish flavoured trumpet (which in itself is very Brel) we got it exactly how I envisaged it.

The poem describes how the ghosts of the famous and infamous rise from their tombs in the cemetery at Père Lachaise in eastern Paris when its gates are locked at night and they all hang out, dance around, and make fun of the tourists as they head off to the brothels and bars of the French capital. Michel also did the voice over on ‘Six Contre Huit’ and it lent a Serge Gainsbourg feel which tickled my Francophile funnybone immensely.

Whether we’d do this again is another story but it’s been great to do something so unpredictable and off the wall as releasing this album.

SK: Has your French or Italian improved since recording the album?

MM: Oui Oui and a 'good moaning' to you!


. . . Swing by tomorrow for Part Deux of Mark's interview.

Until then,

Keep on Keepin' on,

Baia

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