Don't Wake Me Up Till Next Tuesday

Last Friday, Ernie at the always excellent 27 Leggies music blog posted about Vanessa & The O's debut album La Ballade D'O. Suitably inspired, here's some more of the same. A lyric from one of my favourite songs of theirs seemed right on the nose, as I am not back at work till next Tuesday.

 

I've been a long-time champion of Vanessa Contenay-Quiñones' music, from first hearing Espiritu in the early 1990s, to Vanessa & The O's and Allez Pop!, through to her most recent solo album Voodoo Girl, one of my highlights of 2020.

 

For today's selection, I'm sticking with Vanessa & The O's, formed in 2003 by Vanessa with James Iha, formerly with Smashing Pumpkins, Andreas Mattsson and Niclas Frisk, the latter two respectively with Swedish popsters Popsicle and Atomic Swing. The band recorded an EP, Plus Rien, and album, the aforementioned La Ballade D'O. 

 

A second album, Stories For Watering Skies, appeared in France and Japan in 2013, the band by now a trio of Vanessa, Andreas Mattsson and Markus Jagerstedt, who had previously collaborated with Robyn.

 

The sound is dream pop of the highest calibre, with Vanessa alternating between French and English and lyrics that offset the sweet music with a peek beyond the shiny facade, staring into the darkness. Right up my street, in other words.

As Ernie noted, Vanessa & The O's were touted as the next big thing, as was Espiritu before them, and sadly neither quite got there. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to have stopped Vanessa continuing to create wonderful music, as her subsequent solo albums have attested. But that's a post for another time.

Given Vanessa & The O's relatively modest output, a short-but-sweet Dubhed selection today, eight songs in total, three from each album and a couple from the debut EP (which also appeared as bonus tracks on a resequenced Japanese issue of La Ballade D'O.

 

1) Till Next Tuesday (2005)

2) Rainbows After Rain (2013)

3) I Must Be Dreaming (2003)

4) J'attends Lou (2005)

5) Charlie Charlie (2005)

6) 1, 2, 3 Comme Des Poupées (2013)

7) Something Is Calling (2003)

8) Débile Matin (2013) 

 

2003: Plus Rien EP: 3, 7

2005: La Ballade D'O: 1, 4, 5

2013: Stories For Watering Skies: 2, 6, 8

Don't Wake Me Up (27:29) (KF) (Mega)

Ernie kindly referenced my Imaginary Compilation Album for The Vinyl Villain in his post and I will get around to recreating that here in the future. In the meantime, if this has whet your appetite for more of Vanessa's music, here's the Espiritu mixtape that I created in 1997 and previously posted in November 2022.

And as I'm on holiday and feeling very happy about it, here's a quartet of Vanessa & The O's videos for your visual delight. Bagatelle and Charlie Charlie are from La Ballade D'O, L'Air Entre Nous and Débile Matin are from Stories For Watering Skies.