Shake Sauvage: French Soundtracks 1968-1973 (Superb Album)

The French know and love their movies like no one else in Europe, so it's no surprise that they've produced a few top-notch film composers over the years. The folks at Crippled Dick Hot Wax, the German label that has unearthed all manner of offbeat film music, pay homage to a little-acknowledged side of French movie scoring with Shake Sauvage, a disc featuring cues from 15 different Gallic films released between 1968 and 1973 (with a bit of funky library stock music and one retro-styled cut from the '80s rounding out the track listing). On Shake Sauvage, the focus is on French music that seemingly channels hipper American sounds of the day, from the cool jazz-funk of Claude Bolling's "Full Speed" and the naïve neo-psychedelia of Roland Vincent's "LSD Party" (complete with some of the least fluid wah-wah guitar ever recorded) to the ominous spy movie sounds of George Garvarentz's "Les Temps des Loups," and the lush, seductive organ groove of Jean-Pierre Mirouze's "Sexopolis." Actually, lush organ is one of the dominant themes of this disc (Brian Auger appears on several tracks) along with a pervasive fondness for American pop music filtered through the lens of classic-era European cool. Shake Sauvage seems to have been assembled with denizens of the space age bachelor pads crowd in mind rather than connoisseurs of notable film music, but thankfully this set works nicely on both levels -- fans of upscale Eurotrash cinema will eat this up, as will anyone who likes their pop music grand, polished and just a little bit strange. Mais oui!

AMG Review by Mark Deming