Erik Truffaz and Ed Harcourt

The Split Series are Take Away Shows made by friends and other directors. We welcome our friends from Kidam, who went all the way to Switzerland to record both a jazz master and a pop genius. Eric Truffaz and Ed Harcourt, the first of our split series.

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Chryde & Vincent Moon, with their Take-Away Shows put a name on something I used to always have a hard time to explain to the musicians I wanted to film... « We could go outside... unplugged... one shot... blah blah blah..."... and usually it never happened in the end because they thought the sound wouldn’t be as good as on a stage. But in less than a year, those two proved that the spark of life that emanates from these films is most of the time more efficient to make people discover musicians than any regular live recordings... Vincent Moon marvellously gave life to this concept and since then all that need to be said to them is : "Let’s do a Take-Away Show!"... so thanx and respect to them for their hard work and for the space they give to Kidam on this site.

When Marcello Giuliani and Erik Truffaz asked me to come down to Lausanne to film the recording of Arkhangelsk, their new album, the idea of making a Take-Away show seemed imperative and during all the time I stayed there, we used to look at each other with sparkling eyes, wondering where and when.... We thought it could be nice to make one in the museum of Art Brut with the singer Christophe but he always woke up when the museum would close, so it didn’t happen.

Eventually we did those Take-Away Shows with the incredible Ed Harcourt who came down to Lausanne to record a few titles with the Quartet. Ed Harcourt is an amazing singer, writer and composer but he’s not really known in France., though he put out 4 incredible albums and the last one "The Beautiful Lie" is a masterpiece. Erik met him at a tribute to Chet Baker at the New Morning in Paris where he amazed everybody performing "My Funny Valentine". He arrived for a live show in Nyon and two days of studio during which they recorded 6 songs with erik, Marcello, Patrick Muller and Marc Erbetta

So we shot the first Take-Away Show on the banks of the Lac Léman, without any dialogue about what they were gonna play when arrived at the end of the pontoon.

"Nobody puts baby in the corner" is a phrase gangsters in movies from the 30’s used to say meaning "Don’t fuck with me!". Marcello Giuliani came up with the musical idea of it and Ed Harcourt wrote the words in the studio. And this is just above this studio in this improbable music store that they played it live for the first time.

If you want to know more about Erik Truffaz Quartet’s new album, the making-of is available here.

Erik Truffaz’s Arkhangelsk will hit the stores on March, 12th