Fred POULET

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"Fred Poulet goes around with his beautiful, sad, almost toneless voice which exhumes texts which are right on the mark and pertinent. He plays with words, tortures them like a Gainsbourg or a Vian... Il provokes delirium, it's a state of mind. So one wonders if they'll feel confortable in this municipal yoke, whereas they are continously asking for legalization of soft drugs and display ideas on the limits of anarchism!" (Lyon Capital)

"Let's have absolutely no hesitation about saying that the second album of FRED POULET ("Encore cédé") contains several pearls ("Rasoir", "Walking Indurain", "Patience"..), a record with minimalist sounds and texts full of refined poetry." (MIX )

"Asked several weeks ago to give some indications about the content of his second album, Fred Poulet contented himself with this laconic pirouette: "It's the same as the first, but better." He wasn't completely wrong, this guy from Mulhouse who lives in Belleville, in the sense that this Encore cédé displays the same dispositions as Mes plus grands succès, its predecessor which came out a last year. That is, absence of pretention, casualness, superior quality of the writing, on both the musical and textual level, and an apparent simplicity of the whole which a Jonathan Richman would not have renounced. Except that in a dozen months the voice of this unclassifiable fowl has gained in poise, mmanaging to lend his facetious compositions a more mature and accomplished character. Surrounded by his usual acolytes from the nebulous Ja Wio&endash;Alice Botté (guitar) and Arnaud Dieterlen (drums, keyboard)&endash;he manages to impose his caustic style, halfway between rock and chanson, which has a real need for such a perturbing element. Fred Poulet holds nothing back as he gives the most beautiful slap with "EWalking Indurain", a minimalist and hilarious ode dedicated to the Tour de France, to Miguel Indurain and to all the anonymous water-carriers of the Grande Boucle. A clear wink to the "Walking in the Rain" of Flash in the Pan popularized by Grace Jones, "Walking Indurain" sounds like Fred Poulet's first standard. And we hope that "40%" and its sample borrowed from Chapeau melon et bottes de cuir", the Gainsbourgian "M'évanouir," "A la mode" and its dersory accents or "Pleure pas" whose beginning sounds like "Summertime Blues" will permit Encore cédé to know the legitimate success it deserves. For that, Fred Poulet has two undeniable advantages: he know how to make his songs rock and he demonstrates a jeweler's talent when it is a matter of playing in a subtle way with words. It is clear that many well-establlished French artists (Bashung, Murat...) would have liked to produce this year an album of this quality. Fred Poulet took it upon himself to do so. (Rock & Folk )

 

"When Pierre BAROUH decides to take an artist under his wing, that means first of all that this gifted being has necessarily something special in the mode of expression used. Thereafter, it is with total freedom and tranquillity that he will be able to exercise his art professionally. The repect of the other is the driving force of SARAVAH. The systematic association of the names of Brigitte FONTAINE and Jacques HIGELIN with that of Pierre BAROUH is not innocent.

For the moment, that man that interests us is called Fred POULET, and has just brought out, at the beginning of October, his second album enitiled Encore cédé.

In fact, Fred works as a trio with Alice BOTTÉ on guitar (COUTURE, JAD WIO) and Arnaud DIETERLEN on drums (JAD WIO). (Encounter )

"...Among the new-little-promising-artists, we also find Fred Poulet. His real name or a pseudonym, who knows? By regardless of his CV, what interests us here is music (outside of biz) more than moods and gossip. The work of out little 'Chicken' is limited (for the moment, let's hope) to two hilarious and unclassifiable CDs as we like them here. The first is ironically titled Mes plus grands succès, a rather risky choice for the first album of a total unknown, you must agree! In the game of references (oh, the damned markers you have to use to give a tangible odor to what you can't restitute in writing!..) we could cite a ton: Dutronc ou Couture (whose two musicians he swiped, Alice Botté and Arnaud Dieterlen), for the disabused ton of this song thrown as it were from the corner of his mouth, Gainsbourg for the "talkover" (a récitatif more than real singing), Bashung for the guitares ("La Nuit") or the langorous singing ("Moulineaux" or "Femme au foyer"):.... even Bobby Lapointe and Boris Vian for the clever plays on words. Here's a guy who loves to chop up syntax." (VINYL )