Lizzy on stage. Photo by:
Aldo Piscina
London, september 2008
A challenging season lies ahead for Lizzy Ling (pseudomym for Isabelle Durieu from l’Ariège), featuring on several stages that really matter in contemporary
Paris. Amply facilitated by François Bernheim who also produced with Patricia Kaas ad Brigitte Bardot, as the arranger of Lizzy’s album “Tigre dans le Bungaow” she can hardly loose the battle, one could say.
tenderly French, but not a torch singer
Lyrics are by Jean Fauque (who worked with Vanessa Paradis) but also by Lizzy herself,
check out her explanation of the
Black Butterfly song: a butterfly appeared to her when she was 6, “the age when my father died in a planecrash. This black-and-orange butterfly kept reappearing every now and again, when I was in Paris, when I was in the south. Very strange and mysterious…"
She has the capacity to carry out her personal ideas into lyrics and songs. Another quality is that she truly captures her audience.
She’s got the tendresse that characterizes quite a good part of the Chanson genre but doesn’t cope
well with the very dynamics of it. A comparison to la Kaas or let’s take an interpreter of a new generation e.g. Wende Snijders, can’t possibly work out in favour of Lizzy. No Bohemian feelings or Torch Song virtues seem to rise with much
of the singing she does. It’s a pity, Ling tends to remain comfortable with a Vanessa Paradis kind of vocal style, certainly French but also a little passé.
working with Maestro
Minimatic
There’s also a good news part: the arranges sound fresh and some kind of lounge oriented. “Black Butterfly” has become a song with a nice experimental colour. Working with Maestro Minimatic, not easy
to classify – “retro or modern? groovy or gloomy?” as it’s said on his own web page – has a good impact on the result. Minimatic plays a.o. Keyboard, Guitar and Sample equipments. Some of the songs are a little oversampled due
to repetitive patterns. Fortunately the risk of being predictable is avoided; influences are diverse: Funk (listen to: “Tigre dans le Bungalow” ) Jazz, Singer/Song (check out”l’Hiver”) in these fields Lizzy has
good assets as a singer.
I wonder if this trendy international sound scala will generate international events for Ling. Here agenda 2008 (at www.Myspace.com/Lizzyling) has shown no gigs outside of Francophone regions yet. Her admirors however, live
in several countries throughout Europe.
Perspectives
Time seems mature for more and more Cross Over, at least we may assume it is, once we’ve found out
that Lizzy Ling also performs at a Jam sessions (“Gender”) and cooperates with musicians from various backgrounds. More than a dozen of Radio Listings have already passed and more will follow. How to deal with this succes?
Thanks
to a career as a Model in Japan, Ling is already used to the being-on-stage-bizz. She’s got charms, strength in timing and intelligence in a melodic sense. These assets may compensate her lack of the Weltschmerz and Desolation of a true Chansonnière.
With more experience over the years, Life itself might do the rest.
Keith Lane Chester