Wide-open wonder
French-Chinese-American chanteuse Jessica Fichot melds childlike sweetness with grown-up savoir faire at California Plaza
By Bliss 07/12/2007
Grown artists adopting the idioms of children's music are nothing new, but the concept is sufficiently left of center to make an impression when a band or singer-songwriter cops a nursery rhyme or toots a melody on kazoo. The effect can be wildly charming — or disturbing as hell.
A recent trek to San Diego included a stop at a CD release party by the Flimz, a female duo whose music often recalls the Roches in terms of pristine harmonies and arrangements. Their set opened promisingly with a couple of collaborations with local soul songwriter Lisa Sanders, but as it wore on the Flimz's affection for the instrumentation, bright cheer and sing-song whimsy of children's music became unsettling — largely because there was such a disconnect with the lyrics, which were decidedly adult.
In contrast, the ever eclectic Tom Waits can wail on a toy piano and make it sound like barroom poetry — more universal than uncomfortable. Likewise, Jessica Fichot, an American-born singer-songwriter raised in Paris, has also displayed a taste for childlike choruses and flourishes of toy accordion that paradoxically convey a mature, expansive worldview.
But in Fichot's case, such indulgences enhance qualities already inherent in her music — and simultaneously drape her with a quirky allure that's currently in vogue.
Her formal training at Boston's Berklee College of Music shows in the balanced construction and arrangements of her music, but her post-graduate time spent creating children's music for “educational programs” and TV exerts just as strong an influence on her current work. Heavily laced with the graceful sounds of clarinet, cello and accordion, her recently released CD “Le Chemin (The Path)” swirls with cabaret style and elements of Paris street chansons, Chinese folk and gypsy jazz. But when combined with her sweet, clear soprano — which warbles in French, English, Chinese and even Spanish (on the saucy traditional tune “Los Peces en el Rio”) — all that ultimately serves to underscore a wide-open sense of childlike wonder at the heart of her songs.
It also gives her an oddly hip edge. Whether bemoaning the loss of innocent childhood in “Le Grenier,” murmuring the seductive “Le Velours et la Soie” or reinventing the pop standard “Dream a Little Dream of Me”
as “Dream/Les Yeux Ouverts,” she sounds simultaneously sophisticated and schoolgirl-ish. Which, come to think of it, is a very American combo.
Fichot's found steady champions in KCRW and Amoeba Music, both of which have sponsored local performances by her. The Grand Performances series presents Fichot in concert at California Plaza, 350 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, at noon Friday, July 13. Free admission. Call (213) 687-2159 for details. She makes an in-store appearance at Amoeba Music, 6400 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, at 2 p.m. Saturday. www.jessicafichot.com , www.grandperformances.org
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT