Lost In The 80s

 

 

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Once you get past the pure novelty of their style (with a good chuckle or at least a big grin!), you'll notice that their talent is very impressive! As I usually do with a new album, I gave all the songs a quick sample and had my chuckle. After my first solid listening I found myself focusing much more on their playing and much less on the vocals (which are very good). If you appreciate jazz guitar or jazz trio music, you will very likely and thoroughly enjoy this album! Their album went Platinum in Quebec alone before even being released to the rest of the country! Two Juno nominations as well.

The chances that you have heard of French band The Lost Fingers are very slim unless you're 1) French or most likely 2) Live/in or have visited the Canadian province of Quebec. The band is fairly unknown outside of the province but interest in the band continues to grow, in fact I'm surprised Amazon is even selling their albums but I'm supporting it! The Lost Fingers are a brilliant French trio composed of Alex Morrissette, Christian Roberge, and Byron Mikaloff who play gypsy Jazz versions of 1980's pop classics that they grew up with. The album's title 'Lost In The 80's' should give you more of a clue. To me The Lost Fingers are a breath of fresh air when compared to the majority of today's music. I love the band's style, their Gypsy Jazz sound a.k.a 'Jazz Manouche' a la Django Reinhadrt is a peaceful and pleasant one. I'm also a fan of 80's music so I suppose those covers of 1980's songs contribute to my overall appreciation of this fantastic album. TLF sound right out of 'Les Triplettes de Belleville' which is kinda cool if you ask me, their brand of music is quite welcomed these days.

The Lost Fingers have covered successful 80's artists and songs in their own, fantastic way. I won't go through all the songs but I'll say that their version of Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' is amazing, I'm sure the King of Pop would have enjoyed hearing this as an homage. To me the best song on 'Lost in the 80's' is the band's cover of 'Touch Me' by Samantha Fox, its great go listen to it. 'You Give Love A Bad Name', 'You Shook Me All Night Long' and 'Tainted Love' are also favorites. I don't think The Lost Fingers is a band that everyone can enjoy, some people won't like their particular Jazz style and let's face it you can't please everybody when it comes to music. To me, this is refreshing and musically exciting but to someone else it may be horrible.

I'm usually not a big fan of cover albums even though some bands have done famously so before like Guns N'Roses and Metallica with 'The Spaggetthi Incident?' and 'Garage Days/ Inc'. However, The Lost Fingers have a great musical style and they keep the fun pop side of the songs but mix them with their own style so what you get is something different and unique. In my opinion cover albums can work and there are some pretty good covers-only albums I'm not going to deny that they owe quite a lot to Django (their name is a direct nod to him, the accident in which he lost two fingers) because they do, but hearing this style of music done by people much younger and TODAY makes it a little different.

Judge for yourself, hear the samples here on Amazon.com and maybe check out some live performances on Youtube, these guys are great musicians and they can play the hell out of these songs! This combination of Jazz a la Manouche with 1980s pop hits works very well in my book. Take notice that since the album's original release The Lost Fingers have released two more albums, 'Randez-Vous Rose' (2009) and more recently 'Gypsy Chameleon' (2010). 'Randez-Vous' has the band pursuing the same musical direction but this time with French hits; this one is less interesting to me. On the other hand their most recent album has the band returning to English 80's covers and most of them are just as good as what's on 'Lost In The 80's'. 4.5/5.

I heard this band on CBC radio, and had to have it. A refreshing, very uplifting take on Django!!

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4.0 out of 5 stars Lost in the 80s
A friend loves to google new and different music and discovered Lost Fingers. He shared some of their music with me and so I bought the CD as a gift for him. Read more

Published 20 months ago by amazgrl

5.0 out of 5 stars Lost fingers review
I love this Gypsy jazz band and what they have done to the collection of songs. Three cheers to our Canadian talent and the French album is just as good.... Read more

Published on Aug 27 2009 by mstinbc

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Fingers for Lost Fingers
This Canadian group deserves wider distribution and popularity among jazz afficianados in the US. Saw the group in person at a show in Burlington, VT and they were great! Read more

Published on Aug 3 2009 by E. Schick

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