"If I hadn't been busy forming Téléphone, I'd like to think I would have done this album back then!" claims Jean-Louis Aubert, introducing Comme un accord as a new take on history. Still sporting his famously long rocker's locks and his eternal adolescent's grin, Aubert explains that his new album "is really an act of reconciliation with my past. Comme un accord has something fresh and innocent about it. It's a return to a more fluid, natural style, you know, the sort of music that comes spurting out in one mad rush. It feels almost like a kickback to the beginning of Téléphone, in fact."

Aubert is, of course, referring to the fateful day in 1976 when he hooked up with a bunch of old mates and played the first Téléphone gigs. The mates in question being Richard Kolinka and Corinne Marienneau, both of whom he'd met five years before. And then there was fellow guitar hero, Louis Bertignac, who Aubert met in 1971 while hanging out in a record store near the "Lycée Carnot", the school Bertignac attended in the 17th "arrondissement" of Paris. (Meanwhile, budding young guitarist Jean-Louis was a pupil at the "Lycée Pasteur" in Neuilly).

The paths of our four protagonists crossed in 1971, but the birth of the greatest group in the history of French rock did not come about immediately. Kolinka and Aubert went on to work as a duo for a time, performing under the unlikely name Semolina (!), while Bertignac honed his famous guitar skills working with the likes of Valérie Lagrange and Jacques Higelin. But Aubert, Bertignac, Kolinka and Corinne Marienneau finally teamed up together in 1976, launching the long-running, best-selling saga of Téléphone - a saga which, much to French rock fans' disappointment, culminated in the group going their separate ways in 1986 after ten years' non-stop touring.

25 years after the formation of Téléphone, the group's charismatic frontman is back in the limelight with Comme un accord which, according to Aubert's statement about its being a pre-Téléphone album, is both his first and tenth opus to date. (For those of you who're counting, that's five recorded with Téléphone between 1977 and 1986 and five solo efforts between 1987 and 2001!)

After branching out and experimenting with trip hop and electronica on his last album, Stockholm (released in '97) Aubert decided it was time to get back to basics on his new opus, Comme un accord. Hence the choice of Renaud Létang (famous for his work with Manu Chao, Alain Souchon and Aston Villa) as producer. "I spent a long time looking round for a producer for the new album," explains Aubert, "But it was worth it, because I ended up with the best! What I knew I wanted to do was make a really simple album where the music would be at the service of the songs. I wanted to get back to that old wood feel of 1970s' studios! As I'd spent a long time mulling over the songs in my mind before it came to recording the album, I think they came out in a more spontaneous, direct way. And the great thing about Renaud is that he's confident enough about what he's doing, so he never overdoes things on the production side!"

And yet Aubert's new album - full of questions, tenderness and, of course, his legendary guitar playing - is not readily accessible on a first listen. But then this perhaps makes it all the more fulfilling in the long term. Infused with energetic rhythms, Aubert's magical vocals and sublime melodies ("Everyone has to have a speciality!" says Aubert modestly), Comme un accord contains a number of outstanding tracks such as the incredible Changer d'avis. As for Aubert's rhythm section, featuring Fabrice Moreau on drums and Laurent Vernerey on bass, they play impeccably well throughout. "I was so lucky with my musicians," says Aubert, "I really came across a hotbed of talent with these guys!

Aubert's new album is a masterpiece of solipsism and introspection. You only have to listen to Commun accord, a song about a man who bares his soul to find a little peace and tranquillity, to realise that! And then there's the powerful lyrical charge of Voyager en soi-même. "I'm surprised, you know," says Aubert, not without a hint of irony, "that introspection hasn't been developed as a major theme since the Surrealists. Honestly, diving to the bottom of the ocean or exploring the surface of Mars couldn't throw up more amazing, disconcerting results!"

Aubert has spent an incredible three decades making music, but he wears them lightly, modestly pointing out that as a musician the learning is never over. "I remember when I was 16 I listened to Hendrix for the first time," he says, "And I was over the moon when I managed to copy three chords on my guitar. I felt like I was halfway there. And I remember thinking to myself at the time, 'Another year and I'll be all the way there!' The only problem is, I'm still only halfway down the track … I'm constantly discovering new things to learn about music. I was blown away on a recent trip to Jamaica, you know. It was mind-boggling, all the stuff I picked up on for the first time. And while I was working on Comme un accord, I spent days watching this old Beatles' video over and over, really scrutinising how those guys fingered their guitars … I can honestly say what with watching that old cassette and working with my young studio musicians, I've learnt masses. It's a bit like going back to school again, in fact!"

After the release of his 1992 album H, Aubert declared that he'd tried to "come up with something as pure and pared-down as possible. It would be wonderful to make an album like a Japanese calligram, where you manage to express everything in one simple brush stroke! That way listeners' imagination would do the rest." Almost a decade later, Aubert appears to have achieved his aim. "It's funny," he says, when reminded of his desire to create Japanese calligrams, "I'd forgotten ever having said that. But that's the way it is sometimes, when you stop concentrating on things they happen. … Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm so happy with Comme un accord, in fact! It feels like it just came into existence on its own."

Jean-Claude Demari
Homepage photo courtesy by Jean-Baptiste Mondino/ Virgin
Translation: Julie Street

Jean-Louis Aubert : Comme un accord 2001 (Virgin)