Suspense

Digitally remastered and expanded edition of this album from the genre-hopping French artist. Includes six bonus tracks. By the time bohemian singer/poet/artist Lizzy Mercier Descloux recorded her fifth album, 1988s Suspense, shed enjoyed a recording career that was as far from the clichs of music lore as is possible, flitting between genres, continents and collaborators, enjoying great success and equally great failure and even stealing the final breaths of master trumpeter Chet Baker for 1986s One For The Soul. When she came to make Suspense , she was, for the first time, working without her longtime muse, partner and manager Michel Esteban, with whom shed first moved from their native France to New York, where it all began. The pressure was on to repeat the success of Mais O Sont Passes Les Gazelles, a smash hit in France, and Desclouxs label were keen to make a conventional artist of her, pairing her with John Brand, an in-vogue producer with a style geared to a big, shiny 1980s chart soundan approach Lizzy had never experienced before, nor intended to. Recorded in Oxfordshire and Wales, it features songs recorded in both French and English, with lyrics by Mark Cunningham, the trumpet player of the avant-garde band MARS, and James Reyne, the Australian artist who co-wrote much of One For The Soul. Though the initial aim was to make a folky, acoustic album, the pop sound suited the singer, and A Room In New York is as fine and sparky as AOR gets. But when early single Gueule DAmour/Cry of Love stiffed, EMI lost confidence and buried the LP. Bound by her contract to the label, Descloux moved away from music and focused on painting. She eventually settled in Corsica, the French island, where she died, aged 48, of cancer. Desclouxs musical career ended, therefore, with the aptly titled Suspense. It was only a matter of time before this furiously creative artists work was re-evaluated, and with these deluxe reissues, that time is now.