Alice Francis
Play it again, Alice
In many cases, books become films. With Alice Francis everything is different…once again. Because here films become music. For "Club Noir", the third album by the special trio, singer Alice Francis and her two musician gentlemen Goldie and Chul-Min let themselves be infected and inspired by her passion for classic Hollywood.
In her past Alice spent many Sundays watching black and white movies. With Hitchcock, Hawks and Wilder, the Romanian musician with Tanzanian roots was inspired by the film dramas of the time. The passion continues to this day. Alice has been musically successful as Alice Francis aka Miss Flapperty and has been performing live worldwide for years, including with Parov Stelar. In the historical series "Kadewe" by Julia von Heinz, she recently took on a role on screen and was also responsible for a contribution to the soundtrack. As part of the #zerowaste sustainability project she initiated, Alice Francis slipped into the guise of various strong women for a charitable PinArt calendar: Josephine Baker, Marilyn Monroe, Matta Hari to name a few…
In addition to her penchant for costumes and characters, it was above all the stories that fascinated Alice. Traces of this fascination can already be found on her debut album “St. James Ballroom" from 2012 as well as on the 2017 successor "Electric Shock". But with "Club Noir" Alice Francis and her two gentlemen take "story-telling with music" to a new level. As a kind of conductor, Goldie takes on the main part of the musical responsibility. The tracks he arranges and produces are more than just the sounds between Alice Francis' lines. Just like in film, the main roles in music stand and fall with their staging. On "Club Noir" Goldie once again turns out to be one of the really great arrangers. Whether country ballad, doo-wop stomper or crime waltz - the multi-instrumentalist knows what sounds put the songs in an even better light. This time he also recorded many live instruments such as banjo, harp or theremin with studio musicians. The collaborations with the Bucharest Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Simona Srungaru are particularly impressive in this respect.
And so each of the 15 songs on “Club Noir” tells its very own story: about lust and love, about longing and failure, about cats and killers. These episodes are held together by no less classic interludes, which are accompanied by a narrator, like a radio play. That their titles are reminiscent of legendary things from the film noir era? As good as impossible. Any resemblance to "Angles with Dirty Faces", "Murder, my sweet" or "Crime without passion" must inevitably be a coincidence... This is how mental cinema works. And what's the name of the movie? It's a wrap!