Heads High

A singer, self-taught guitarist, painter, writer and musical pioneer, Lizzy Mercier Descloux was special. Her sound, like that of her No Wave peers, occupied the space between Punk and Funk. It was her expansion of that space that made her so unique. Sounding more like a softly spoken beat poet than a singer, Lizzy chanted, scatted and chatted over effect-laden rhythm tracks composed of minimal, single note guitar lines, off-key harmonies and rhythm sections oozing with funk. To begin with at least, the people weren’t ready. Like Albert Ayler’s Free Jazz formations of the early 60’s or J Dilla’s late 90s MPC musings, Joe Public and Ian Industry slept….thankfully though, they woke up.

A Paris native, Lizzy made the transatlantic jump to New York in the mid 70s. Starting as she meant to go on, she published ‘Desiderata’ (a collection of poems and photographs), bought a Fender Jazzmaster guitar, starred in the New Cinema short ‘Blank Generation‘ and eventually recorded a six-track mini LP for the cult legend ZE Records under the moniker Rosa Yemen in 1978. Rosa’s low-key Punk Funk stylings invited comparisons to fellow No Wavers ‘Mars‘, but the release showed few signs of the genius that was ahead of her.

The real gold came with the release of her ‘Press Color‘ long player in 1979. The album is simply off the chain. Now, I was born in 1979 and waited almost twelve years to experience genres whose seeds can be found germinating on Press Color. LP cuts like ‘Hard Boiled Babe‘ and ‘Birdy – Num -Num‘ are mind blowing. The former sounding like a pre digital Burial/Sbtrkt cut with French accented vocals while the latter presents an eerily pitched jazz workout punctuated by double time, proto Drum & Bass rhythms. Heat.

Predictably, LMD found little fame with her 1979 offering. Despite its artistic calibre, ‘Press Color’ was barely distributed in the U.S.. The true light of her work managed to shine through however and a tour of the States and Europe grabbed the attention Island Records supremo, Chris Blackwell resulting in the tropical funk of ‘Mambo Nassau‘.

Recorded in the Bahamas at Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios and crediting one Wally Badarou with co-writing and production, Mambo Nassau married the futuristic Punk Funk of Press Colour with subtle African/Caribbean musical constructions and hyper energetic equatorial vibes. Although not as hard-edged as it’s predacessor (which is natural when you exchange the NY skyline with the Bahamas coastline), Mambo Nassau still has it’s fair share of noteworthy moments. Highlights include the synth driven syncopation of ‘Five Troubles Mambo‘, the melancholic stepping of the Bob Marley cover ‘Sun Is Shining‘ and the Pidgin Funk of ‘Lady O’K'pele‘. Lizzy had been closely studying ‘World Music’ collections issued on the french Ocora label and it’s no accident that the Mambo Nassau LP bears the hallmark of an artist who was looking beyond the Western preoccupation with funk, soul and rock. Again, success was elusive under the star spangled banner but this time Lizzy’s efforts were appreciated in Europe, with her home country’s CBS office adding her to their roster. The people had woken up.

Clearly the ‘World Music’ bug (World Music was a term which was yet to come into existence) had bitten LMD hard. 1983 saw her exploring the African continent, beginning in Ethiopia and culminating in South Africa. Naturally, she recorded an album on her travels, it’s title track ‘Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles‘ becoming a surprise hit in France and despite being three albums deep in creation, it is this track that remains her signature piece to the European market. It peaked at number 30 in the French charts and it’s international focus somehow managed to alter the course of French Pop music from that point onward.

From here on in we complete a familiar story. The sequence is this:

1. Artist offers up some truly inspirational forward thinking creativity. The people sleep.

2.Artist continues to do so, the people sleep but some take it on.

3. Artist’s output loses some of its original magic but the people are now awake and lauding his/her present offerings with praise.

4. Artist ‘peaks’ in the mainstream sense and continues to create work which gradually falls into obscurity again, but this time without the quality that characterised their early releases.

In Lizzy’s case, this ‘post-peak’ period saw her working with Chet Baker on her 1985 offering ‘One For The Soul‘ and linking up with old peers from her No Wave days Mark Cunningham and Constance Burg for her final release, 1988’s ‘Suspense‘. There is also rumoured to be an unreleased album of her work recorded in 1995.

At the end of her recording career, Lizzy settled in Corsica and revisited her old loves, painting and writing, completing a novel ‘Buenaventura’ which is as yet unpublished. Sadly, in 2003 she was diagnosed with a cancer which proved terminal when she left our realm in on 20th April 2004. It is said that two Dolphins surfaced as her ashes were scattered into the sea off the coast of Saint Florent, Corsica. The Dolphins knew too…

Needless to say, the very fact I am writing this shows both my admiration and gratitude for the influence her work has had. I am happy that compliation projects like Strut’s ZE 30 and Soul Jazz’s New York Noise are doing what the re-issues of her early work failed to and shine a broader beam on a truly inspirational pioneer. An artist who was immersed in punk and yet never conveyed any anger in her work, instead presenting a child-like wonder of the world, its cultures and possibilities. I’ll leave the last words to punk icon Richard Hell with whom Lizzy worked on her ‘Desiderata’ book:

“At 17 she was more sophisticated than anyone I’d known, while also seeming utterly unaffected. Or at least her affectations came from such a stubborn confidence and will to defy convention that they were irresistible.”

Click Here to listen to Duke Etienne’s latest Afro/Two-Step/Funky/Aquacrunk/Soul selection which kicks off with LMDs ‘Hard Boiled Babe’… and see below for Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s unrivalled discography.