[glocal scene] Jil Is Lucky

Jil Is LuckyI had somehow come into contact with Roy Music, the label of the Paris band Jil Is Lucky, through booking gigs around Europe. The label manager put on a few gig nights in the City of Lights, and often prescribed peculiar English names (with a feline slant) to attract a fashionable crowd (e.g. Cute as a Cat and We Are the Lions). A while after a brief email exchange with the mysteriously omnipresent club promoter and label manager, I received a blank postcard to my home address with an image of a man in a pair of sunglasses flanked by four religious leaders dressed in colourful spandex (which would be the album cover shown here, but without the band title). A few weeks later, the début album from Jil Is Lucky appeared in my postbox.

This charming record is a heady mix of styles, religions, instruments and peculiar prose. Jil Bensénior, leader of Jil Is Lucky, sings entirely in English throughout the self-titled début, sparking interest in whether the strange lyrics are mistranslations or in perfect keeping with the troubadour nature of the album. Either way, I couldn’t help but be endeared to Jil Is Lucky. The 12 tracks are jam-packed with many musical styles and sociological issues (tackling chanson, ska-punk, folk, and post-rock as well as tipping the hat to Christianity, Judaism and Islam in three separate songs), culminating in a grand listening experience. The second track from Jil Is Lucky, J.E.S.U.S. Said, takes a look at what Jesus said:

Jil Is Lucky – J.E.S.U.S. Said

The lovely folk at Roy Music have made a live version of the 10-minute final track, Hovering Machine, available for free download.

Jil Is Lucky garnered great success in France when this album was released in 2009, buoyed by a silly video for their single The Wanderer. A new album is in the works, which, if I’m lucky, will mean a mysterious blank postcard full of priests and rabbis to pique my interest before the next dose of Jil’s wacky melodies.

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