Anne Pigalle
★★★★ Ecstase PIGALISSIMO. CD/LP Piaf and Bowie share a Disque Bleu in boho Soho’s Latin Quarter. Parisienne post-punk painter, poet, photographer, performance and multimedia artist Pigalle has adorned London’s Soho for years, a rare Bohemian still standing in that now sanitised purlieu. Flush with Frankie Goes To Hollywood cash, ZTT Records released her promising debut, Everything Could Be So Perfect, in 1985, but no more records followed until L’Âme Érotique and Madame Sex (2010 to 2013). Written, produced and powerfully sung by Pigalle,
Ecstase is her most satisfying album to date, 10 songs progressing from melancholy to true love via Black Dahlia, the unsolved 1947 murder case inspiring overripe art-rock noir
à la Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, while La Ballade Du Late Night Soho and the playful, witty A Man On Piccadilly, with Terry Edwards’ jaunty sax, echo
Hunky Dory. Accordion waltz All My Love is cabaret chanson nonpareil, while I Found You has the sumptuously affecting romanticism of early Roxy Music. Mat Snow