Voilà / Voila

Once the chirpy lead singer of the 80s powerpop group the Go-Go’s and then a successful solo singer (“Heaven Is A Place on Earth”), Carlisle has been silent for nearly a decade. Her return is welcomed if unexpected, as she reinvents herself on Voila as a singer of French pop standards. However, while her material covers a wide range and hits upon the important archetypes from Edith Piaf to Serge Gainsbourg to Francoise Hardy, she is hardly beholden to traditional arrangements. Her backing group includes Brian Eno on keyboards and the Hot House Flowers’ Fianchna O’Braonain on guitar and the arrangements are exploratory in their approach, applying elements of electronica, ambient, middle-eastern groove, alternative rock and everything in between. The eclectic and expansive settings leave plenty of room for Carlisle to explore her own vocal experiments. She sounds perfectly comfortable singing entirely in French, her rich tone coming through strongly on “Avec Le Temps,” Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” Piaf’s “La Vie En Rose” and Charles Aznavour’s “Jezebel.”