Bertrand

Bertrand Burgalat was born in the Corsican town of Bastia in 1963. His father, a high-ranking civil servant, was the sub-prefect of the island at the time, but as often happens in this profession, the Burgalat family moved several times in the course of Burgalat senior's career so young Bertrand grew up in several different towns in France. Obsessed with Classical Music from an early age, Burgalat apparently became fascinated with the possibilities of pop music after seeing Pink Floyd in concert when he was 10 years old. Burgalat is well-known for his cool, breezy 1960s-style pop sound, something he has lent to his production work with Air, April March, A.S Dragon, Dalcan, Jad Wio, Mick Harvey, Louis Philippe and the French writer Michel Houellebecq. His musical influences include the "ye-ye" sound of French pop made famous by France Gall, Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Fontaine, as well as the singers Jacques Dutronc and Serge Gainsbourg, as well as the 'folk-music of the Ruhr' created by Kraftwerk. Reputed to possess one of the most acute ears in the business, 'BB' (a nickname he shares with Brigitte Bardot) also draws inspiration from 20th century French classical composers such as Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen, and was greatly influenced by the writings of cult French journalist-cum-pop visionary Yves Adrien. At the age of 25, he produced the Laibach's album Let It Be, which is an entire cover of The Beatles' album of the same name. In 1995, he remixed and rearranged the Renegade Soundwave song "Positive Mindscape" (as "Positive BB") for release on the "Positive Dub Mixes" CD single. His own releases, The Ssssound of Mmmusic (2000) and Portrait-robot (2005) fuse subtle electronica, psychedelia, soaring backing choruses and string sections with wry lyrics (some of them written by Philippe Katerine, April March and Alfreda Benge, Robert Wyatt's long-time companion), and finely-crafted melodies. Burgalat is also expert at using discords and dissonances in his harmonies, some of which bear more relation to avant-garde classical music than to pop. On his album, Bertrand Burgalat Meets A.S. Dragon (2001), Burgalat places his crooning style directly in contrast with A.S Dragon's hard-groove rock/jam-band sensibility. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.