Not given an enormous fanfare, as far as I can tell, though I imagine it was in her native France, but a new Francoise Hardy album, (her first in six years), was released last Friday. Entitled, Personne D'Autre,(No-One Else), from its opening notes, it's full of the plaintive, distinctive melody that has made her such a distinctive artist since the Sixties. Featuring ten originals and two covers, it's a deeply affecting release, mapping the passing of time sung in French with You're My Home a sole venture into English. It reminded me of everything that I've loved about Hardy's work, while being very much its own thing, a record just as much about what's here and now as what has been and gone.
Hardy has lived a remarkable life. Contemporary of the Stones and Dylan in her heyday, and married to Jacques Dutronc, now aged 74, Personne D'Autre is a remarkable testament to her enduring talent. The specific qualities of her voice and delivery are still in evidence, and the record showcases a strong set of songs, clearly focused on the processes of age, memory, loss, and the search for peace and love . It's elegaic and quite beautiful, perhaps the bookend to a superlative career and body of work though we hope not. She's an icon, in an era where we have far too few of them with us. Appropriate in its year of release, where so many of the records that have jumped out at me thus far have been driven by female artists, she still shows quite effortlessly how it needs to be done.
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