mick-harvey
L.J.Spruyt

Mick Harvey (ex Bad Seeds) released third Serge Gainsbourg tribute LP, with another out in January (listen)

L.J.Spruyt
photo by L.J.Spruyt

Mick Harvey, who was in both The Birthday Party and The Bad Seeds, has over the last 20 years released a series of Serge Gainsbourg cover albums with lyrics translated into English. The first two were released in 1995 and 1997, and the next two volumes will both see release this year. The third, Delirium Tremens, came out in June via Mute and features songs from throughout Gainsbourg’s carreer, such as “The Man With The Cabbage Head” (“L’homme à Tête De Chou”) from the mid-’70s and very early songs such as “Deadly Tedium” (“Ce Mortel Ennui”) and “Coffee Colour” (“Couleur Cafe”). You can stream that album in full, via Spotify, below.

The fourth in this series, Intoxicated Woman, will be out November 4 January 20 via Mute. This one focuses on the mid-’60s period where Gainsbourg was focusing his songwriting on singers such as France Galle, Juliette Greco and Brigitte Bardot. Says Harvey, “After the initial recordings for Delirium Tremens, JP Shilo and I continued investigating the duets and female songs, many of which were unknown to me. So it became a voyage of discovery into quite a lot of material I hadn’t heard before. There are even a couple of songs for which the only versions existing from the 60s are from TV performances Serge gave.”

For it he has enlisted help from a number of singers: Channthy Kak (Cambodian Space Project), Australian singers Xanthe Waite (Terry, Primo), Sophia Brous, Lyndelle-Jayne Spruyt and Jess Ribeiro and German chanteuse Andrea Schroeder. Mick’s son, Solomon, is also on the album. You can check out to snippets of a few songs from Intoxicated Woman — “Baby Teeth, Wolfy Teeth,” “Striptease” and Bridget Bardot’s great single “Contact” — via an album teaser below.

If you’ve never heard 1995’s Intoxicated Man or 1997’s Pink Elephants, you can stream those below via Spotify as well.