Posted on: March 3, 2016 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Drôle de dilemma is the first track on Jacques Pellarin’s My French Cinema, and it provides listeners with an entire range of styles and sounds. Primarily beginning in a classical tradition, Pellarin is able to take up many of the early modern approaches and styles in a bouncy, light-hearted affair. The sweeping sounds of Hans Otto Strasse is provided considerable depths through the numbers of twists and turns that Pellarin includes here, with each subsequent section providing further context for those that immediately preceded it. Jacques Pellarin My French Cinema Volume 1 CD
The fancy-free Le Chant d’un bandonéon elicits the sea, with all of the whimsy of young love. The musicianship on this track is unparalleled; while there is some sense that this is a very face-forward composition, where listeners will find the most to enjoy about My French Cinema has to be the interplay between the compositions and the songs. The melody that is weaved through Petit piano deviendra grand is given an otherworldly sound through a Pierre Henry-esque challenging of the norms of music.
Sweet Musicbox is a highlight of the second half of My French Cinema, with the difficulty of the composition’s arrangement performed impeccably. The rapid pace as which Pellarin plays here would trip up an amateur musician, but a laser-like focus on getting this right provides enough of a reason to have listeners on the edges of their seats for the final few efforts of the album. While short in the amount of time that L’orgue des faubourgs takes up on the album, the rising and falling motion of Pellarin’s accordion will resound loudly long after the album has ceased. My French Cinema Volume 1 concludes with En vous attendant, a slower effort that winds things to a close perfectly.
Top Tracks: Hans Otto Strasse, Sweet Musicbox
Rating: 8.2/10
Jacques Pellarin My French Cinema Volume 1 CD / 2013 Self / 12 Tracks / http://www.jacquespellarin.fr/ / https://soundcloud.com/jacques-pellarin / https://www.facebook.com/Jacques.Pellarin/

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