A collaboration born of a chance meeting at a midsummer wedding, Saint Privat is the project of singer Valerie and musician Waldeck. Their debut album Riviera broke the constraints of every format and received heavy rotation on cultural, alternative, classical and pop radio stations. The album sold out immediately upon release and was repressed several times. “Tous les jours” was the connoisseurs’ summer hit of 2004 in Germany, Austria and beyond, playing on radios from Hamburg to Vienna.
The honeymoon on the Riviera may have passed but now the result of two years of creative marriage has given birth to the new album Superflu, heralding the revival of the “Chanson psychédélique”. At times fresh, charming and très trippy.
The seductive world of Saint Privat is one of glamour, luxury and enrichment (in French : Le Superflu), but behind the beautiful façade, the dark foundation of the Jet-Set life emerges : hedonism, decadence and melancholy. Superflu becomes a nostalgic daytrip to places inaccurately remembered because our minds have been hobbled by divine champagne.
It is 1976. We take the Concorde from Paris to New York. The pilot reminds us somehow of Alain Delon, and he greets Valerie with a knowing wink. The next morning, Valerie doesn’t wake up as usual in her Upper East Side Apartment, but under a blossoming cherry tree in Central Park. She is wearing her evening dress, barefoot. Lying next to her in the grass : an empty pillbox, a bottle of champagne and singer Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane.
And the music : The very French lala-lala-lala, the melancholic yet frivolous une dernière cigarette, the erotic Dadaism. Always supple and 100% at ease, Valerie playfully switches between the roles of the “Femme Fatale” and the “Lolita”.
The album was recorded by the Saint Privat Live Band- Clemens Wabra: guitar, Ruediger Kostron: bass, Erwin Schober: drums. The vocal recordings were recorded with the band to catch the authentic atmosphere of a raffish old French Variété theatre. To accentuate the feeling the musicians were shown psychedelic soft porn as they played, and playing his own organ, Mastermind Klaus Waldeck refined the songs with some sublime dub, clubgroove and electronic sounds
Le superflu est chic !
