Gigi de Nissa

Gigi is the nom de plume of one Louis Pastorelli, a fellow traveller of Moussu T – a shared personal history in 80s Occitan rap and alternative carnival arts – and his debut opus transposes the action 120 miles east to another characterful Mediterranean city, Pastorelli's hometown of Nice. ‘Je suis Gigi de Nissa’, he asserts proudly in the title-track, in the face of Parisian snobbishness concerning his accent. Pastorelli, naturally, has the same chief lyrical preoccupations of the genre – local language and working class culture – and in this case they're exemplified by the Union Sportive Ouvrière football club and the bars of the Cours Saleya. There's simple, honest romance too in items such as ‘Leonora, a great little dance number, and ‘Lou Roussignou, a charming waltz with lyrics describing nightingales sleeping on vine branches above brown girls. (Unless I've got the Occitan totally wrong, of course, and it's really about Trotskyite theories of linguistic imperialism.) This is all rendered by Gigi's attractively warm voice and a Jovent-esque mix of acoustic guitars, banjo, light percussion and touches of Brazil – some of these supplied by the Jovents themselves. Thoroughly successful.