Maintenant

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Album Information

Total Tracks: 15   Total Length: 45:27

eMusic Review 0

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Maris Kreizman

Audiobooks Editor

01.25.10
A loving, modern-day recreation of girl-group pop, sweet as a chocolate malt with nary a wink to be found
Label: Tomlab / SC Distribution

When you're a teenager in love, certain emotions feel like they were invented just for you. The rush of a first kiss. The loneliness of pining for a crush who doesn't like you back. The tearstained-pillow melancholy of a freshly-broken heart. In the 1960s, no one articulated this hormone-fueled agony and ecstasy better than Phil Spector, who produced a hit parade of perfect pop songs that filled jukeboxes and AM radio with the sounds of young love and loss, punctuated by plenty of "oohs" and "ahs" and "whoas".

It's in this spirit that songwriter Nick Krgovich of Vancouver-based band No Kids and producer Colin Stewart (Black Mountain, Destroyer) formed Gigi, a project that calls on a whole new generation of musicians to emulate the best of the '60s pop sound, all reverb and earnestness. With lyrics straight out of the Brill Building , Gigi boasts a chorale that specializes in shimmering girl group harmonies (on glorious display in the stunner "Some Second Best") and guest vocalists that are a veritable who's who of indie rockers — from Zac Pennington of Parenthetical Girls to Mirah and Karl Blau — with a flair for the retro.

Rose Melberg of the… read more »

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Girl group fun.

ltlam

Handclaps, swoony harmonies, dramatic piano & percussion and Phil Spector-esque fun. It'd be hard to listen to this record and not be cheered up. This is probably the most upbeat record I've come across this year – in fact, it might even motivate me to vacuum clean the house more often. "I"m Not Coming Out Tonight" & "Someone Tell Me Please" are my faves, so far. Get your handclaps ready, it's girl-group revival time!

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By Maris Kreizman, Audiobooks Editor

"Anagrams" is the name of one of my favorite books - it's clever and heart-wrenching at the same time.I like sad songs you can dance to, and I like sad songs you can cry to. I like girl groups and electro-pop and Brit pop and twangy torch songs. I'm still haunted by some of the songs that I was obsessed with when I was a kid. I think "twee" and "deep" are not mutually exclusive. more »

They Say All Music Guide

Gigi: it’s the kind of name (like Dusty or Petula) that brings to mind pop singers of yore. And this is exactly what Gigi are going for on Maintenant: indie pop that (similar to groups like the School, the Carrots, and Saturday Looks Good to Me) harkens back to the heyday of the Brill Building sound. Gigi is essentially a concept band that grew out of a collaboration between producer/engineer Colin Stewart (who, prior to this, had worked with Black Mountain and Destroyer) and Nick Krgovich (P:ano, No Kids). The duo recruited well over a dozen of their friends (among them Rose Melberg, Mirah, and Karl Blau) and set up a series of old-school live-off-the-floor recording sessions. The resulting album succeeds in every way a project like this should: that is, it manages to fulfill a fantasy (i.e. one in which Rose Melberg is transported back to the early ’60s, where she is the lead singer in a stellar girl group) without sounding hokey or gimmicky. Maintenant is, more than anything, a showcase for Krgovich’s irrepressible eclecticism and his penchant for touches of camp. This sensibility feels right at home on Maintenant — after all, if there was ever a time to get campy, it’s on an album that takes its cue from the golden age of beehive hairdos and beach party movies. Krgovich and Stewart pull out all the stops, kitsch-wise, and it’s a joy to hear them let loose. (Choice moments include: the clippity-clop drumming and goofy bass vocals on “Some Second Best;” Rose Melberg’s Bakelite-smooth vocals on “Alone on the Pier,” and the rain-slicked Henry Mancini-style string section on “The Marquee.”) This playfulness bumps up against the album’s sentimental side beautifully, especially on “The Marquee,” where the song’s cutesy lyrics (“Under a blue and white beach umbrella/ Sittin’ pretty, waitin’ on a fella”) are matched wonderfully by Katie Eastham’s smoky-sweet vocals. Maintenant is, in other words, just a big old treat for fans of sweet-as-pie indie pop, not to mention a testimony to Krgovich and Stewart’s collective creative prowess. – Margaret Reges

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