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Album: Sebastien Tellier <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Universe, LUCKY NUMBER

Andy Gill
Friday 22 September 2006 00:00 BST
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Their country's heritage of easy-listening accordion music has perhaps helped to render French pop musicians less dismissive of lounge muzak than their American and British counterparts. Combined with the influence of Satie and Debussy, it has helped contribute to the warm, poised quality of soundtrack work from composers such as Vladimir Cosma (Diva) and Yann Tiersen (Amélie) - a lineage to which we should now add Sebastien Tellier, whose desultory guitar and piano piece "Fantino" was featured in Lost In Translation. That's included here alongside highlights of his Sessions album, selections from his recent soundtrack to Narco, and "Universe", used in Daft Punk's film Electroma. The son of a member of Seventies French art-rockers Magma, Tellier doesn't possess a strong enough voice to adequately carry his songs, but his arrangements are beautifully crafted. Favouring combinations of piano, woodwind and strings, his compositions here trace a course between classical, pop, chanson and easy-listening that sounds uniquely French, and unusually engrossing.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'La Ballade Du Georges', 'Broadway', 'La Ritournelle (Mr Dan's Mix)'

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