Gauvain Sers's Les Oubliés (2018)

Gauvin Sers's second album, Les Oubliés, lives up to the expectations suggested in his first album Pourvu. Unusually (for an album or book, etc, surely?) Sers introduces this with a kind of explanation, saying how a second album is notoriously difficult: if he reproduces the same as the first people will just say he's going round in circles, if he branches out into something different they'll say he's lost his way, and so on? So how does this fare?

There's a similar concern with lists: the conditions and/or objects in 'Pourvu' and 'Dans mes poches' in the last album give way to the number of past treasures stored in 'La Boîte à chaussures', and his drawer in 'Le Tiroir' includes a photo booth picture that recalls the many Photomaton moments in the film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain referenced in the first album, which also played a part of course in the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet making clips of Sers's songs.

And that old photo from the machine is of his drunk mates posing together. Friendship is high on the list of importance in this album, as in 'L'Épaule d'un copain', where a mate's shoulder is of primary concern. However, Sers (while singing in the first person) is intending to be understood in the third person in 'Changement de programme' when he unkindly mentions his 'p'tite femme' whom he ignores one evening: originally intending a drink or two with his male friends to last a short time, the session lasts well into the early morning, and the narrator knows that this is far from the final time, no matter what he says. In fact this sounds like a regular (or potential) drunkard speaking.

This macho swagger is far removed from the sensual thrust of 'Ton jean bleu' or (far more) from 'Excuse moi mon amour', where he empathises with his partner, shows strong contempt for the sexist world in which she lives, in which a young woman has to show every care about how she dresses in a world full of male vultures.

As in the album Pourvu, there isn't just one track where Sers uses the first person for a third person voice: there's also 'Tu sais mon grand' where he imagines the voice of his grandfather, or the voice of a student prostituting herself in order to survive financially in 'L'Étudiante'. Even in his duo with the 85-year-old Anne Sylvestre, 'Y'a pas de retraite pour les artistes', he's singing in her voice, as if he were her.

Overwhelmingly, I've of course saved the most important bit to the end. This album is called Les Oubliés, which of course isn't a reference to Sers's beloved cinema (Buñuel's Los Olvidados), but to the closure of village schools: there are several clips of Sers's work at a primary school in Ponthoile (Somme), and several photos from the school are in the CD booklet. Perhaps this is an indication (as 'Hénin-Beaumont' and 'Mon fils est parti au jihad' suggested in Pourvu) that Gauvain Sers's voice should speak of social issues or evils. Certainly a new track (not found on either album): 'Y'a plus de saisons', which concerns global warming, might indicate this. I wish him a long and successful future.