Areski & Brigitte Fontaine - Le bonheur. Vinyl cover/Alamy
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
Brigitte Fontaine is one of the last great singers of avant-garde music of the past century. Apart from being a singer, she is also an actress, writer, and political activist, whose work spans fifty years. She is an angelic freak of nature, a completely unique individual, and there will never be anyone quite like her. She is originally from the north of France, but her lover and long-time co-writer, Areski, has Berber roots, and therefore, Algerian and Eastern tunes play an important role in her music (take, for example, the amazing ‘La Femme à barbe’). This also applies to one of her most well-known pieces, ‘Le Nougat’. It was even played on MTV in the early nineties, which was quite unusual for her exquisite music. This song is about a naked lady who finds an elephant in her bathroom, and the elephant demands the much sought-after Eastern sweet. For those interested, note that in October 2024, the eighty-five-year-old Fontaine is set to release a brand-new album with the refreshing title Pick-Up.