Search - Kate Mcgarrigle & Anna :: La Vache Qui Pleure

Buy Canadian and Save . . .

B. Stockwell | San Francisco, California United States | 05/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like Tom and Gabriel, I have been a fan for a long time, since seeing them appear on "Saturday Night Live" c.1975 and wondering who they were and if they had recordings out, etc. A few years ago they appeared in San Francisco and my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I still weep and sigh over that wonderful evening; Kate McGarrigle had washed her hair prior to the concert; these are the things you learn from a live performance. "La Vache Qui Pleure" is, spectacularly and wonderfully, "more of the same" which means you need to buy a copy for youself and a few dozen to pass out as gifts. But $30.00 for a single CD is musical blackmail, especially since, as Mr. Good suggests, it would cost less if ordered from Amazon.ca (Canada, not California). It is: there, it sells for $16.99 Canadian dollars. In American terms, that's about $12.25. Amazon.ca will also toss in the McGarrigles first "French" album - "Entre la Jeunesse et la Tendresse" - and the two CDs will only cost the US equivalent of $25.20. Even after postage is added, this is the route I'm going."

Better and Better Over and Over

D. Rachlin | Stow, MA USA | 08/17/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How exciting it was to discover a new record by Kate and Anna. I play this cd over and over again in my car, and especially the first song. The instruments begin one at a time, eventually creating a multilayered richness. Having studied Germanic languages, my French is limited. Okay, so I bought a new French dictionary and figured out the first song. This leads me to wonder why the inner sleeve doesn't have English translations. We can't all be bilingual, now, can we, n'est-pas?? (Sunflowers does have an Anglo version at the end, though).
Also, I really don't like the interruption to all the great music with that horrible poem recited by what's-his-name. I just skip it and return to the blissful voices of our favorite sisters. Nevertheless, this is still a five star cd."

Kinda blurry

P. Bryant | Nottingham, England | 11/12/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This could be regarded as the follow up to "The McGarrigle Hour" (their last one, 1998), or "Matapedia" (their last studio album, 1996) or "The French Record" (their last one which was all in French, 1992). Whatever, a new one by les McGarrigles is toujours a reason for bunting and the release of doves. Kate and Anna are chanteuses, musiciennes et auteures-compositeures de réputation internationale, se sont mérité les éloges de la critique et du grand public partout où elles ont passé, que ce soit en Amérique du Nord, en Europe ou en Extrême Orient. Okay, that's enough of that.

We have grown up together, them and me. Never glamour-pusses, even in 1976 when their essential debut was issued (don't have it? stop reading this and buy immediately!), K & A are now grey-haired and grandmotherly. The back cover photo is so blurred and they look so glum it looks like the one the kidnappers released to prove they're still alive. C'mon K & A, you're grey, I'm grey, it's okay! Their voices are similarly now being recorded kinda blurry too, which is to say that only rarely does an individual voice step forward, on this album it's practically all multilayered harmony - no bad thing, but a trifle samey.

Since their first two albums, which were masterpieces, all McGarrigle albums have been patchy. The good ones had some really bad stuff and the bad ones had a couple of gems. "La Vache Qui Pleure" is, even after many listens, hard to place. The accordions, violins and acoustical guitars and the drenching female harmony are all in place, but nothing has really grabbed me - or should I say only the two bad ones have, a French version of "Little Boxes" and a French AND an English version of "Ah! Sunflower" which curiously isn't credited to William Blake. (Blake fans should refer instead to Van Morrison's setting of Blake in "Let the Slave"). Perhaps this album suffers from the compositional uncertainties of "Matapedia" (some of whose songs seemed deeply inconsequential, or I was missing points all over the place) but - well, I dunno, it's in French. I love the McGarrigles, but only three stars this time.

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