In Cinerama April March

• 1 Lift Off 03:02
• 2 Rolla Rolla 03:24
• 3 Open Your Window Romeo 04:25
• 4 Californian Fall 03:03
• 5 Stand In The Sun 02:50
• 6 Ride Or Divide 03:06
• 7 Elinor Blue 03:34
• 8 Runaway 03:03
• 9 Baby 04:03
• 10 Down the Line 02:25
• 11 Born 02:16
• 12 Goodbye (Bonus Track) 03:33
• 13 Friends Peculiar (Bonus Track) 03:08
• Total Runtime 41:52

Info for In Cinerama

April March has quite the resume: an animator on Pee Wee’s Playhouse and for Madonna’s “Who’s That Girl” video, and collaborating with Brian Wilson, Jack White, LL Cool J, Jonathan Richman, Ronnie Spector and Bertrand Burgalat. But she also has an acclaimed recording career, heavily influenced by French pop music, making a name for herself in France with her self-produced albums as well as albums with Bertand Burgalat and Aquaserge.

She named her English version of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Laisse tomber les filles” “Chick Habit,” and Quentin Tarantino featured it in his 2007 film, Death Proof.

Following a quarter century of recording, March unveiled In Cinerama as a vinyl-only release for Record Store Day in 2021. It was an unprecedented success, selling out of its small run before most could hear the magic. In Cinerama has a wide sonic span from Nigeria to California, with Fela Kuti’s drummer Tony Allen at the helm and The Beach Boys’ Marilyn Wilson-Rutherford by his side, as well as talented friends ranging from the French underground to Nashville; The 11 tracks, co-written and co-produced by Mehdi Zannad, recall the 5th Dimension, Belle And Sebastian and even your favorite Gainsbourg or Curt Boettcher productions but stand on their own just as fresh and contemporary as the waves of Malibu or a Parisian Uber.

As Christophe Conte writes in the notes: “In Cinerama is an active medley of images and sounds inherited from pop’s golden age, made not into a nostalgic mirror of times gone by but a vital, vibrant material. In the movies as in music, time stands still. Actors and actresses, singers, musicians, and moments fixed in wax and celluloid exist forever. They are the stuff of our mythologies, both personal and communal; they live in greater, more beautiful, and more exhilarating countries than any real ones we will ever visit… April March, Mehdi Zannad, and their magnificent entourage give us one such stationary voyage, an ideal map to admire down to the tiniest detail, a world we dream of inhabiting.”

The updated In Cinerama is the perfect way to get acquainted with this influential and important artist. But, mostly, it’s a way to experience one of 2021’s most acclaimed releases.

"For someone who has made as many great albums as April March, she'd have to do something special for one to be considered her best work. Enter 2021's In Cinerama. Working with producer Mehdi Zannad (of Fugu fame), she called in guests from her illustrious past like Andy Paley, Petra & Rachel Haden, and Danny Frankel, as well as new collaborators legendary drummer Tony Allen and vocalists Lola Kirke, Bennet Rogers, and Marilyn Rovell Wilson. The cast is joined by a crack band of musicians and together they've concocted a sound unlike anything March has done before. There are songs bolstered by horns and strings that sound like a bouncier 5th Dimension ("Lift Off"), have a lovely Beach Boys-meet-soft-rock feel ("Californian Fall"), sway with a relaxed bossa nova mood ("Stand in the Sun"), get introspective in classic singer/songwriter style ("Elinor Blue"), and jangle sweetly like a track from a Belle and Sebastian album produced by Curt Boettcher ("Born"). Added to these tracks are a few that conjure up the early rock & pop leanings of March's earlier work, like the Del Shannon-quoting "Runaway" or the sweet as pie "Baby." Traces of French pop still linger here and there but the track where they come through the strongest is in the epic album-closer "Open Your Window, Romeo," but the vibes are far more "Ballad of Melody Nelson" than "Chick Habit." Zannad brings in dramatic strings, piercing guitars, rumbling percussion, swooning backing vocal harmonies, and Tony Allen's charismatic drumming, which acts almost like a second lead vocalist as his fills answer and build upon March's powerfully emotional singing. His drumming is one of the major things that set this album apart in her oeuvre; he brings some non-Western rhythms to tracks like "Rolla Rolla" and "Stand in the Sun" that March, ever the musical chameleon, is able to slide into like perfectly tailored jeans. Another thing that makes In Cinerama special are the backing vocals. March is surrounded by beautiful harmonies on every track; the Hadens sound predictably perfect, Kirke and Rogers aren't far behind, and when Zannad occasionally chimes in, it's heavenly. Having Marilyn Wilson sing on "California Fall" -- the most California song on the record -- is a brilliant stroke of casting too. All of this genre hopping and inspired playing would be a waste if March didn't hold up her end of the deal. No worries there as her vocals sound the most assured they ever have, and the songs are possibly the strongest batch she's collaborated on yet. There is an autobiographical feel to many of them and a slight trace of melancholy beneath all the sunny surfaces that gives them a welcome bit of emotional stickiness that makes the bubblegum last longer. From the sound to the performances, lyrics to melodies, arrangements to production, In Cinerama scores the highest marks possible and all these elements work together in perfect harmony to truly make it April March's masterpiece." (Tim Sendra, AMG)

April March

April March
In a former life April March must have been a rockier fairy than Tinker Bell and like a cat, she has already had several lives. An animator trained by Disney, she has animated for Pee-wee Herman, Ren & Stimpy, Madonna, worked on Archie Comics, assisted Spiderman creator Steve Ditko and even assisted the legendary Harry Smith who occasionally brought Allen Ginsberg in tow to mentor her. She entered the NYC music scene with her garage girl-group The Pussywillows, which Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes, promptly hired to record and perform with her. A year into her music career, she landed on stage with Ronnie Spector at a completely sold out Madison Square Garden. Over a large plate of chicken back stage, Bo Diddley said to her, “Welcome to Rock and Roll.”

Next she joined The Shitbirds and The Haves, finally settling into the driver’s seat as April March. A Francophile from a tender age, she re-introduced an international audience to the French pop heritage of Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Dani, Gillian Hills and many others. She cut her teeth in self production on a slew of popular to very obscure covers and adaptations of songs the French themselves had forgotten. Quentin Tarantino plucked “Chick Habit,” her adaptation of Gainsbourg’s “Laisse Tomber Les Filles,” to feature in his film “Death Proof.” She recorded “Chick Habit” with the help of Andy Paley who introduced her to Brian Wilson. This began a nice stretch of recording on and off with Brian for the next couple of years subsequently giving her a priceless education in both arrangement and production. So when Alexander Payne couldn’t reach Brigitte Bardot on the phone he hired April instead to write and produce her own Bardotesque song for his film “Election.” Next she met the modern day French Phil Spector — Bertrand Burgalat (just as talented, but a lot less dangerous). She made two albums with Burgalat, the first of which “Chrominance Decoder,” was chosen as one of the top ten albums of the year by The New Yorker and in the top 100 of all time by the seminal French magazine Rock et Folk. Burgalat introduced her to the great Aquaserge which led to an album and two films directed by Marie Losier landing her performances at The Centre Pompidou, MOMA and PS1.

And so at this point in time, April March has recorded with Ronnie Spector, Brian Wilson, Jonathan Richman, R.L. Burnside, Andy Paley, Bertand Burgalat, Tony Allen, Yo La Tengo, LL Cool J, Alain Chamfort, Darlene Love, The Dust Brothers, Laetitia Sadier (Stereolab), Maya Rudolph, Sean OHagan, and Aquaserge. After such a list of credits, certain artists would have rested on their laurels to the strains of “The Afternoon of a Faun,” but this Franco-American ringleader is a horse of a different color, preferring to go forward rather than look over her shoulder, which brings us to the latest. She has just been cast alongside Gerard Depardieu and Vanessa Paradis in a feature film. After having published a children’s book with Jack White called “We Are Going To Be Friends,” she’s recorded an E.P. with Olivia Jean in his private studio which he released March 5th with a Video following on March 17th on Third Man Records. She’s releasing a new album with the amazing Fugu featuring Tony Allen of Fela and Gorillaz as well as Marilyn Wilson of The Beach Boys and American Spring on July 17th with Record Store Day. The cherry on top? It’s another new album with the dazzling duo Staplin who, according to Radio France,“compose with talent music where pop sunshine melodies of the sixties dance on trip hop beats, psyche rock rubs shoulders with cosmic flights of evanescent synths, and repetitive orchestral music stretches to festive groove storms.” Olè !Make it stand out.

This album contains no booklet.