Carpe Diem And Extras

Slightly unusually for the LTM label, this is not an expanded version of the original Carpe Diem album but a pairing of that 1992 album with its immediate predecessor, 1991's Les Derniers Guerriers Romantiques. It's still a worthy release, though, not least because the two albums are tied together by sad circumstances. Les Derniers Guerriers, following in the vein of Isabelle Antena's earlier solo efforts in the '80s, found the singer continuing to enthusiastically explore her own stylish hybrids of worldwide musical styles, with bossa nova, mid-20th century jazz, torch songs and more modern touches -- not to mention a cover of hippie musical standard "Aquarius" -- combined in beautiful fashion. One of the musicians was double-bassist Dirk Schoufs, who had not only become her key collaborator but her personal partner, which fed into the gently celebratory air of the album -- but who tragically died a month after its release. It is in this light that the very appropriately titled Carpe Diem should be seen, both as an affirmation of Antena's determination to live life to the fullest, and as a further pursuit of the synthesis she had made her own over the years. That it starts out with one of her most exuberant and lively songs, the salsa-driven "Le Syndrome de Peter Pan," is enough to show Carpe Diem is not out to simply remember with regret, but to embrace with gusto. The loss of Schoufs is addressed directly via "Corto Prend Le Large," but there are other down moods at points, in other ways, like the delicious blues/jazz confection "Calife Blues." The sheer play in Antena's work is no less buried either -- thus the brief interruption by one Achilles and Penelope with "freestyle intervention" on the doubtless-titled-after-them "Deux Enfants." James Nice's extensive essay on Antena's life and work is, as ever, a fine hallmark of the LTM reissues. ~ Ned Raggett|