2005 - France
Art Rock, Gothic Rock, Cabaret, Chamber Pop
There was this strange beauty in Son Of’s album Lo-Fi Dreams of Epilepsy, and this beauty has an origin, a place where it was even more present, where the poetry wasn’t that desperate yet. Seventeen years before, the French band Jack the Ripper released their third album Ladies First, recently remastered by Themsay who added a song to the tracklist, the magnificent Une saison en enfer (A season in hell), which is the reason why I chose this version, even though I will mostly talk about the original release. Guitars, keyboards, bass, violins, trombones, violas, trumpets, bugles, the chamber orchestra surrounding Arnaud Mazurel’s voice is composed by wonderful musicians. You could read every paritition separetely and still hear all the beauty of their songs. Because by “melody” we normally hear “a musical motive that can be sung”, Ladies First’s songs is made of songs with one melody per instrument, and that’s what makes its complexity and genius.
“Look at my face, it's an old book / Lord, it's not a poem it's... full of lines / You have to go in...” The first line of From my veins to the sea is the clear indication we are about to dive in the tortured spirit of an accursed poet. In this song, Mazurel explores the delusional state of mind of someone trying to rest in his dreams to find comfort and not kill himself. There is a dynamic in Jack the Ripper where they want to tie every human being’s life together. The title of the first track share this exact intention, while expanding this principle not only to human beings but to the world itself. This is also what they mean in White Men In Black where black is a matter more than a colour. At the end of the song, Adeline De Lepinay does something quite common for the band, reciting lyrics that sound like a poem, this time in French, something quite rare but probably because of how deep the French word “noir” sounds compared to “black”, more down to earth.
As always in their music, like the band’s name indicates, Jack the Ripper drowns its lyrics in mythological references, and mostly ones coming from pop culture. Because what define their musical identity is their ability to turn everything that is supposedly sacred into profane. They don’t believe in icons, they want to face the reality and how much emetic it can be. In I was born a cancer, Mazurel talks about his fate, to die of cancer, because he keeps smoking like the angels and their clouds, reciting cigarette brands like a mantra precipitating his death. In I used to be a charming prince and The Apemen, the Bride & the Butterfly, the myths are used to highlight modern anxieties and hypocritical opinions. On the first, the singer and his spleen wonders about Snow White and lowfat pin-ups appearing in commercials, while the second song focuses on King Kong, Darwin and how we are indentured by the feeling of love.
“I know that someday / I'll lose control / Inside the supermarket aisle / I'll kill'em all the love songs on the radio / Looking at junk food / I start to cry / I've got the anorexic blues / When I don't know what to buy” Those lyrics of Hungerstrike at the Supermarket shows what Jack the Ripper keeps analysing: our modern suicides. That way, the song-title Vargtimmen is the Swedish word for “the hour of the wolf”, when, according to director Ingmar Bergman, “most people die” and “ghosts and demons are most powerful”. Ladies First narratives all develops during this hour of the wolf. On the stunning Hush for instance, a man is drenched in jealousy in this abysmal Paper Thin Hotel-like song. “She screams like a porno star / The she meaows like a cat / I can't stand anymore / Hush ! Hush ! / Again and again ! / It's gonna bring me down...”
Following philosophical influences by French poet Charles Baudelaire and German philosopher Hegel (only drama is capable of “presenting the beautiful in its most complete and profound development”), Jack the Ripper created a trilogy of beauty through their dark thoughts and humanist views, they found a place for their poetry to unveil its beauty. I use the word “humanist” because even if their songs are inhabited by pessimism, for example in Goin’ Down : “Don't understand / Why in a zombie movie / All humans have to flee / What we all wanna be ?” and in Old Stars where Lucy in the sky finally overdose and where “All the poets consummate / Burn their brain like comets”, they also talk about human relationships in a way that encompasses everyone, freeing themselves for the belief of God in Une saison en enfer to face our condition as the lonely spirits we are. And whether it’s in their lyrics or in there wonderful instrumentations (if you listen to this album you’ll soon realize they always find brilliant ways to end their songs), this strange beauty is everywhere.
“Look at my face, it's an old book / Lord, it's not a poem it's... full of lines / You have to go in...” The first line of From my veins to the sea is the clear indication we are about to dive in the tortured spirit of an accursed poet. In this song, Mazurel explores the delusional state of mind of someone trying to rest in his dreams to find comfort and not kill himself. There is a dynamic in Jack the Ripper where they want to tie every human being’s life together. The title of the first track share this exact intention, while expanding this principle not only to human beings but to the world itself. This is also what they mean in White Men In Black where black is a matter more than a colour. At the end of the song, Adeline De Lepinay does something quite common for the band, reciting lyrics that sound like a poem, this time in French, something quite rare but probably because of how deep the French word “noir” sounds compared to “black”, more down to earth.
As always in their music, like the band’s name indicates, Jack the Ripper drowns its lyrics in mythological references, and mostly ones coming from pop culture. Because what define their musical identity is their ability to turn everything that is supposedly sacred into profane. They don’t believe in icons, they want to face the reality and how much emetic it can be. In I was born a cancer, Mazurel talks about his fate, to die of cancer, because he keeps smoking like the angels and their clouds, reciting cigarette brands like a mantra precipitating his death. In I used to be a charming prince and The Apemen, the Bride & the Butterfly, the myths are used to highlight modern anxieties and hypocritical opinions. On the first, the singer and his spleen wonders about Snow White and lowfat pin-ups appearing in commercials, while the second song focuses on King Kong, Darwin and how we are indentured by the feeling of love.
“I know that someday / I'll lose control / Inside the supermarket aisle / I'll kill'em all the love songs on the radio / Looking at junk food / I start to cry / I've got the anorexic blues / When I don't know what to buy” Those lyrics of Hungerstrike at the Supermarket shows what Jack the Ripper keeps analysing: our modern suicides. That way, the song-title Vargtimmen is the Swedish word for “the hour of the wolf”, when, according to director Ingmar Bergman, “most people die” and “ghosts and demons are most powerful”. Ladies First narratives all develops during this hour of the wolf. On the stunning Hush for instance, a man is drenched in jealousy in this abysmal Paper Thin Hotel-like song. “She screams like a porno star / The she meaows like a cat / I can't stand anymore / Hush ! Hush ! / Again and again ! / It's gonna bring me down...”
Following philosophical influences by French poet Charles Baudelaire and German philosopher Hegel (only drama is capable of “presenting the beautiful in its most complete and profound development”), Jack the Ripper created a trilogy of beauty through their dark thoughts and humanist views, they found a place for their poetry to unveil its beauty. I use the word “humanist” because even if their songs are inhabited by pessimism, for example in Goin’ Down : “Don't understand / Why in a zombie movie / All humans have to flee / What we all wanna be ?” and in Old Stars where Lucy in the sky finally overdose and where “All the poets consummate / Burn their brain like comets”, they also talk about human relationships in a way that encompasses everyone, freeing themselves for the belief of God in Une saison en enfer to face our condition as the lonely spirits we are. And whether it’s in their lyrics or in there wonderful instrumentations (if you listen to this album you’ll soon realize they always find brilliant ways to end their songs), this strange beauty is everywhere.