CocoaMusic: Indie Singers Recommended--Barth and His "Under the Trampoline"

Today I'd like to recommend Barth to you. Actually i knew him several days ago when a guy came here and requestedhis songs. His music is really fabulous and romantic like the city he comes from--Paris.

Official site-http://www.myspace.com/barthroom
Video of "The last wig"--http://youtube.com/watch?v=Nd-b9WoqaaQ

Biography and Review about his latest album--"Under the Trampoline"

Barthelemy Corbelet learnt to play guitar at the age of 11. Quiet school life. Degree in anthropology brilliantly cut short. Everything spiralled from then on. Barth found himself working as shop assistant at Cash Converters in order to survive. Here he developed his penchant for dressing up, helping himself to objects lying around the stock cupboard : flippers, wigs etc …Everything spiralled from then on. Barth found himself working as shop assistant at Cash Converters in order to survive. Here he developed his penchant for dressing up, helping himself to objects lying around the stock cupboard : flippers, wigs etc …

Of an irritable nature, a non-smoker due to never having felt the need, Barth went on to become courier for an elderly persons’ association, a job that didn’t steer him too far away from the human element, bringing him that bit closer to what he wanted to do later on : make music. Still struggling to make a living (decidedly) he started making music for tv, adverts, credits…

Until he glimpsed the light at the end of the Euro tunnel : first album in England released by Boss Music “Essence of giraffe”, signed by Andy Ross the founder of English label “Food Records” (Blur, Jesus Jones, Idlewild…). Autodidact and partisan of the do-it-yourself approach, Barth cobbles his work together using second-hand material (drum-kit, old-fashioned keyboards, his guitar, an analogical 8- track tape recorder and pure gold in his hands…). The album was recorded at his flat in Paris-Bastille.“Barking but brilliant” the Sunday Times would say. Nice.

Concerts. Many. Including opening for the Pretenders during the Franco-English leg of their European tour. Axel Concato, life-long friend, would accompany him on keyboards.

For his second album “Under the trampoline”, Barth would leave the confines of his bedroom and go into the studio, recording with Mike Pelanconi (Graham Coxon, Gregory Isaac) who co-produced the project.

Result : a pop jewel , sparkling glints of surrealism, cut Jamaican style by an Anglo-Italian freebooter.

In a fancy dress costume of his choice, lovingly put together after raiding his drawers. Bonnie Prince Billy’s moustache. Lee Perry’s moon boots. The supple, bouncy hairdo of Beck. The Gretsch of Rob Orbison. The side smirk and tights of Damon Albarn. Simply Barth.

Barth likes football too. He’s remarkable in attack.

“Under the trampoline” is a shining example of class, nonchalance, precision, vivaciousness and panache: pop gems contoured by dub music, his own voice permeating his own lyrics.