16 September 2020

Review: Pigalle Connection – Casino & Church / Vendetta James

This was love at first listen. As the shuffling drums gave way to the tightest of funk guitar riffs, the Hammond organ (B3 of course) kicked in and all we needed was some brass to complete the groove. No need for superfluous vocals that’s just gonna stink the room up, just close your eyes and dream…..

With Pigalle Connection’s Casino & Church, Hammond maestro Guillaume Metenier has assembled a crack team to take you on a jazzy/afrobeat/funkfest. Flip the 7” and you get Venedetta James (my new sobriquet hepcats.) a cinematic slice of continental heaven with mournful brass layered over dreamy keys. If this is the hors d’oeuvre, I’m hungry for more.

Do yourself a favour, buy the tracks, fly to Paris, find that chi-chi café and slip it to the maître d’. As it plays a beautiful, usually completely-indifferent goddess will be at your table in seconds* occupying the vacant chair, enchanted by your presence and desperate to know your life story. Just take a sip of your café au lait, stare into the distance and as the music plays whisper ‘another time Cherie’.

*for heterosexual ladies and members of the LGBT community, insert the stuck up cow variant of your choice.