Les Alpes suisses, rendez-vous glamour

Verbier

L'autre station valaisanne «People» du moment, c'est Verbier, devenu le terrain de jeu favorti des Anglais, en particulier. Le milliardaire Richard Branson, fondateur du groupe Virgin, qui y skie depuis de nombreuses années, y a d'ailleurs désormais un hôtel. Il devrait y accueillir ces jours le chanteur Peter Gabriel.

Autre chanteur britannique, James Blunt a déposé ses papiers dans la station du Val de Bagnes. Celle-ci a accueilli l'an dernier les acteurs Hugh Grant, Juliette Binoche, Christian Clavier et José Garcia. Le fils de Caroline de Monaco, Pierre Casiraghi, a été photographié récemment... alors qu'il se battait dans les rues de Verbier!

Les people anglais ont choisi Verbier

Colonisée chaque hiver par des milliers de riches touristes anglais, la station bagnarde de Verbier est également le repaire favori des stars du showbiz et de la finance. «Les personnalités viennent à Verbier pour le domaine skiable, mais surtout pour la discrétion dont elles jouissent. Ici, ce sont des gens comme les autres, explique-t-on à l'office du tourisme. C'est ce qui fait la particularité de la station. On peut tomber sur une personnalité comme ça, au détour d'une rue ou sur les pistes.»

Alors aujourd'hui, qui peut-on espérer croiser? Malheureusement, pas Hugh Grant, qui était présent la semaine dernière. Mais Sir Richard Branson. Le milliardaire britannique serait installé dans son nouvel hôtel, The Lodge, où logerait également son pote Peter Gabriel. Et puis James Blunt. Le chanteur est un habitué des lieux. «Il venait déjà quand il était militaire, rappelle une habitante de la station. L'armée anglaise envoyait ses éléments les plus méritants en vacances à Verbier. A l'époque, il se produisait déjà dans certains bars.»

Spare us the liner notes

Saul Williams released a low-quality album as a free download in 2007

You don't need to hold an album to love it

When Radiohead made their new album, In Rainbows, available for download in October at any price fans cared to set, you'd think from the ink spilled by drooling journalists that they'd managed to revolutionize music's distribution system in one fell swoop. Lo and behold, Thom Yorke & co. will be selling the album in CD form on New Year's Day -- and it's not just for diehards from the musical stone age who want physical artefacts. As it turns out, Radiohead played something of a fast one on their fans at the outset by offering them MP3 files to download at the bitrate of 160 kbps (which is noticeably below CD quality) without alerting them to this first. If you want the music in reasonable quality, you'll have to pay (in many cases, again).

Less dubious is the model set out by Saul Williams, who is making his excellent new Trent Reznor-produced album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust, available online either free (with lossy files) or for $5 (with maximum-bitrate MP3s or lossless, CD-quality files). No catch, no hidden fees!

Both In Rainbows and Niggy Tardust prove that, even as physical formats become less important to the way music is released, there's something to be said for the idea of the album itself as a collection of related tracks.

When he was launching his On-Demand Distribution system for music files in 2000, I asked Peter Gabriel if the advent of downloading spelled a death sentence for the album; he told me it wouldn't, as people still want narrative structure in their art. Such, indeed, seems to be the case, whether figuratively (with a set of tracks that "takes you on a journey" or a DJ mix) or literally (witness the spate of recent concept albums with storylines, from Jay-Z's American Gangster to Reznor's Year Zero). Downloading should, with any luck, spell the death of the cynically conceived "album" consisting of one or two singles and a whack of filler.

Now all we need is a better distribution system with high-quality, no-DRM MP3s and content from various labels and musicians at reasonable prices. The Songwriters' Association of Canada's proposal to impose a monthly fee on Internet users for legal file-sharing, while problematic for those who are uninterested, might lead to just that. Industry Minister Jim Prentice would do well to consider it -- anything is better than the U.S.'s restrictive, law-suit-heavy model. And after all, taking legal action against their customers is the best way for the major labels to speed their own extinction.

MIDEM Talent Only’s 30 Top Artists

Thirty artists and groups have been selected to perform at MIDEM Talent Only next month. A new flagship event at MIDEM for the discovery and development of artists, MIDEM Talent Only offers four days of pop/rock, jazz and classical concerts, conferences and a range of networking events. Headliners include The Black and White Years, produced by Talking Heads' Jerry Harrison, Troy Von Balthazar, former front-man of Chokebore and Finnish act 22-Pistepirkko. Classical and jazz performers include rising stars like pianist Paddy Milner, saxophonist Géraldine Laurent, trumpet player Ibrahim Maalouf, Slovenian pianist Bojan Gorisek and violinist Diego Tosi.

They will be joined by some key industry players at MIDEM Talent Only's conferences, including Peter Gabriel both in his capacity as artist and in his role as head of the Real World label, Domino Records founder Laurence Bell, and celebrated producer Tony Visconti.

The event has already created strong buzz in the industry, with some 270 acts participating via the Sonicbids on-line promotion platform. The MIDEM Talent Only concerts will be held from Sunday 27 to Wednesday 30 January, throughout the day and into the evening, and will be open to both professionals and the general public. The MIDEM international music market will take place in Cannes from 27 to 31 January 2008.

A New Deal For Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel is restarting his record label, Real World, with a new collaborative album and a slew of reissues. Newly distributed in the United States by Ryko, Real World will make its entire catalog available online and rerelease some of its albums on CD, with bonus material. The label’s first new project is Big Blue Ball, a group that includes Mr. Gabriel and Karl Wallinger of World Party.

The album, due in May, has been in the works for 15 years, and the first single, “Whole Thing,” went on sale on iTunes last Tuesday. Real World’s catalog includes albums by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sheila Chandra, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Papa Wemba and others.

GIG OF THE YEAR

(...) Historic return flight for Zeppelin

LED ZEPPELIN 02 ARENA, LONDON

A staggering two million fans applied for the 18,000 tickets up for grabs for the gig. The guest list - which included Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, U2 and Oasis - read like a Who's Who? of Rock. The Zep reunion was a huge gamble... but this historic show more than lived up to the hype. Jimmy Page proved he's one of the greatest guitarists of all time and singer Robert Plant was on fire. Songs such as Black Dog, Trampled Underfoot and Kashmir were stunning and still relevant. Fans will be talking about this show for years to come. (...)

Peter's December Update

In the last update of the year Peter talks about last month's 46664 concert on South Africa, the long journey of the Big Blue Ball project and a night at the Led Zeppelin concert at London's O2 Arena; which gave him his first trip to The Dome since working on OVO for the Millenium celebrations. We feature 'Exit Through You' and 'Whole Thing' from the forthcoming Big Blue Ball along with archive footage of the conception of 'Whole Thing' through the collaborations in The Workroom here at Real World, and excerpts of 'The Nest That Sailed The Sky' from OVO at the Millenium Dome.

Marrakech : Le festival international du film s’impose

La levée de rideau sur l’édition 2007 du FIFM a eu lieu le vendredi 7 décembre avec la présence du président de la Fondation du Festival, SAR le prince Moulay Rachid. D’emblée, un hommage a été rendu à la star de Hollywood Leonardo Dicaprio et au cinéaste marocain Mustapha Derkaoui. (...)

Martin Scorsese et Marrakech

Le réalisateur américain Martin Scorsese a donné une « leçon de cinéma » le samedi 8 décembre dans le cadre du festival international du film de Marrakech. Cette leçon était ouverte aux étudiants et aux professionnels. Rappelons que le festival a rendu hommage à Martin Scorsese en 2005. Depuis, ce grand monsieur de Hollywood qui ne cache plus son amour à Marrakech. C’est un autre « Goytissolo » que la ville ocre est en train de séduire pour le convertir en véritable marrakchi.

Jamaa Lafna en transe

Le dimanche 9 décembre à Jamaà Lafna, le grand public a assisté au concert du groupe Nass El Ghiwane et à la projection du film « Transes » (1981) de la productrice Izza Gennini et du réalisateur Ahmed El Maanouni, en présence du réalisateur Martin Scorsese. Dans La Dernière tentation du Christ, ce dernier a été inspiré par la musique de Nass El Ghiwane qu’il a découvert en effectuant des repérages au Maroc pour ce même film. Peter Gabriel s’en était également inspiré pour composer la musique du film, une musique énergique qui anime les foules.

Izza Génini fidèle à elle-même

C’était une soirée particulière et chaude malgré le froid de ces derniers jours à Marrakech. Les propos de Izza Génini son expressifs pour décrire le moment : « ce soir la place de la rédemption est devenue ‘la place de l’art’ ». Cette casablancaise n’arrête pas à travers ses films documentaires de prouver à sa manière son amour pour son pays et son patrimoine immatériel...Aïta, Malhoun, Gnaouas, Gharnati.

Bouchra Elkhadir