Readers of Open Up and Bleed will remember the story behind Avenue B; before making the album, Iggy recorded some stripped-down jazz songs with Hal Cragin. Hal played me some of these tracks when I was working on the book, including a beautiful versio of Autum Leaves; I loved them. Back when I first interviewed Iggy, we discussed whether he’d ever make a stripped-down album which would place his voice in the foreground, something like Nick Cave’s A Boatman’s Call. Sadly with Avenue B, much of the purity of the original concept was watered down.
Hence I was overjoyed to hear from Hal in January, who told me that Iggy had called him to revive the concept, for a new album, Préliminaires. Here’s Hal on the album:
"Iggy got a call to do music for a documentary about a writer named Michel Houellbecq trying to direct a movie version of his book, The Possibility of an Island. At that very same time I had sent Iggy our old jazz tracks just for posterity's sake, the timing was right, and we used this excuse to resurrect and complete our particular collaboration," Hal explains.
On the music:
"Some of the original songs we did had a launch pad from the spirit of Houellbecq’s book, but once we got rolling the collection of songs took on its own life."
“Our first song was an Iggy original, ‘King of the Dogs.’ I produced it with full King Oliver New Orleans fanfare. The song is really swinging and the NYC horn players nailed it in 2 takes. I played Freddie Green type guitar as in those days they usually used a tuba, rather than a bass.
Other Tracks Include:
‘Les Feuilles Mortes’ (‘Autumn Leaves’).
"Most American audiences will know the English version sung by Johnny Mercer in 1949, but we wanted to pay tribute to the original version by Hungarian Joseph Cosma (1905-69) and legendary French poet Jacques Prévert (1900-77) which was performed in the 1946 Marcel Carné film Les Portes de la Nuit."
“We did a very dark and cool american version of Autumn Leaves back in the original apartment session, somehow Iggy thought it seemed like a better plan just to go back to the source when we revisited it - Iggy singing in French is quite a first."
"‘To the Beach’ is very introspective, and really just floats along on the lyrics and piano figure, I felt a rhythmic element too soon would break the mood.”
“‘Je Sais Que Tu Sais" is a duet in English/French with Lucie Aime from the Poitou-Charentes region of France. Dark and rocking, it follows a dialogue between the sexes.
"‘Spanish Coast’: Iggy was somewhat inspired by the character in the book The Possibility Of An Island; he had the first few lines and and we took it from there, there is a pulsating string motif in the intro and outro which borrows heavily from the ocean waves.”
"‘Nice to be Dead’ is a full-blooded rock track, which goes poetically from wanting to be left alone to acknowledging that being dead is the best ‘green’ solution for the planet.
‘How Insensitive’: “ The original by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes features English lyrics by Norman Gimbel. We tweaked the feel of the rhythmic features. On the more well known jazz tracks that are such a staple of the lounge jazz canon, I approached them with a new twist... to bring the songs into a new wing of the building."
‘Party Time’: “This is a electro dance style track, with quite funny lyrics about disco culture, and Daft Punk like electronic elements.”
“‘Machine for Loving’ is a spoken word recitation from Houellebecq’s book about the relationship between a man and his small dog - who is at death’s door.