French singer, songwriter and producer Le Volume Courbe's sophomore album I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me is now here. The new album comes ten years after her debut, I Killed My Best Friend, was released on Honest Jon's. Recorded by Le Volume Courbe frontwoman and creative force Charlotte Marionneau, the album is part solo effort and part collaborative project with Marrionneau's longtime band members Melanie Draisey, Chris Mackin, Lascelle Gordon, Theodore Hall, Wildcat Will and Barney Slater.
I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me also features My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields singing on Roky Erickson cover “I Love The Living You” and shooting a toy gun on “The House” and Martin Duffy of Primal Scream playing piano on “Monte Dans Mon Ambulance.” Marrionneau also covers Nico's “Le Petit Chevalier” alongside her own original compositions.
“Now I understand why second albums are difficult,'” Marrionneau says of recording the new album. “Your first album is your ‘best of; the music you've made all your life; then you start again from scratch. I'm not prolific, but I need an album to be strong throughout. I have to build it like a collage; I feel more like a producer than a musician really. So I pick up ideas and create songs around them. It's about trying things, experimenting.”
Marrionneau grew up in a small town in Pays de la Loire in northwest France before moving to London in 1995. Encouraged and inspired by friends including Shields, Duffy, Hope Sandoval, David Roback and Colm O'Ciosoig, she recorded I Killed My Best Friend. In 2007 Marrionneau joined forces with her band and the Theodaurus Rex EP followed in 2011. I Wish Dee Dee Ramone Was Here With Me is the culmination of that EP featuring those four songs plus seven new tracks.