Serge Gainsbourg - Aux Armes Et Caetera

Rocky says: Freggae Supreme! 1979. Serge is looking for a new sound. So he heads down to Jamaica, to make his own contribution to the locally-grown craze that's taking the world by storm. He hooks up with Marley's backing band and singers, all legendary players in their own right.

So Wrong it's Right. The bio account (cf. Sylvie Simmons book) tells a tale of a strange intersection of cultures: the band be toking while Serge politely demurs in favor of his lounge lizard scotch. The band eying this curious louche Frenchman with puzzlement. The I-Threes singing the refrain to "Lola Rastaquouère" entirely unaware that Serge is telling a story about rolling his "poor joint" between a bodacious Jamaican teen's tits.

Pure Jamaican Gold. And the result is a pristine groove masterpiece that hasn't aged a day. They took it on the road for awhile, but the title hit tune, which made yawning mockery of the bloodthirsty French national anthem ("To arms! whatever..."), so infuriated the French veterans that there were riots and bomb threats and the bewildered band quickly scurried back to Jamaica. Oh. Dear Lord, but how I so love this record!

allmusic: This is one messed-up set. Dig the fact that this is Serge Gainsbourg in dread beat and booze. Aux Armes et Cætera is literally Gainsbourg on the rocksteady tip with Sly and Robbie, Flabba Holt, Michael "Mao" Chung, Ansel Collins, I-Threes, Rita Marley, Marcia Griffiths, and Judy Mowatt, Sticky Thompson, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace, and a bunch of French folks playing puff-the-ganja and help the white man in Kingston. Gainsbourg knew what he wanted — a Lee Perry-styled dubber and dread outing — and he knew the cats to hire to get it. It contains 15 cuts; some, such as "Javanaise," are remakes, while others, ("Des Laids, Des Laids") were written for the session.

The Jamaican studio musicians are solid, rocking it down the pipe dark, smoky, and deadly in their grooves. While Serge would seemingly be at a creative impasse, having been one of the whitest men ever to record a side, his tunes work here because he's allowed them to be completely transformed by the Rastas, and his vocals work because they are chanted [rapped] rather than sung. This is weird, dangerous, and campy music, but it works like a charm. In its day this album was reviled: now it's the work of a visionary. Go figure, but if you dig Gainsbourg, this is for you.

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