A French Love Affair
BABY et Lulu is simply a French translation and a long held nickname for two musicians. And the project for Lara Goodridge, violinist and singer or Baby and former Leonardo’s Bride front woman, Abby Dobson, singing here again as Lulu, has been a simple pleasure. Though the two had been friends for years, they hadn’t discovered their mutual love of everything French until they ran into each other on the Champs Elysees (or under the Eiffel Tower… somewhere in France anyway).
Dobson says she really fell in love with France when she visited the country a few years ago, but she’d had an interest since she was little. “We were working together on my last solo record, but it wasn’t until we were in Paris at the same time – that’s how that angle was discovered. “Then one night we sang that first song together and it was great. We would sing in harmony and then it was just a matter of finding other French artists that I’d loved. The pair would send each other clips and MP3s of songs and artists they liked any spare moment they got. “We were looking for things with a similar aesthetic, it was quite specific but it was a similar framework that we seemed to both be working in,” Dobson says. Then they both started writing songs in French, specifically for a live show. It was a while before they decided to record, but for Dobson it wasn’t the first time she’d recorded in French.
Even When I’m Sleeping, the ARIA hit for Leonardo’s Bride in 1996, was also recorded in French at the same time they’d recorded it in English. “I had a friend who helped me with the translation but our sound tech used to sing the chorus in French just for fun,” Dobson says. The song was covered in Canada by a girl who released it in French, but Leonardo’s Bride never did anything with it. “We couldn’t find a copy,” Dobson says, “so we decided to give it a proper life and a new life on this album.” Dobson has said harmonising with Goodridge gives her a childish feeling of excitement. “It absolutely does,” she says. “We’ve been performing together for a couple of years now. The momentum just grew from there. “But a few days ago we were both in crappy moods before doing a radio interview and we did an a cappella rendition of one of the songs and by the end of it we were feeling completely different.
They’re just such beautiful harmonies and singing with another person is just amazing. “Harmonising is its own unique thing for me. It’s also a friendship and there’s a heart connection as well. The heart is connected to the voice so when the two come together with it just creates that childlike feeling. Particularly coming together with the sound rather than anything else. It’s like being birds, like tweeting.”
Cassandra Torbin – The Norther Star http://www.northernstar.com.au/