By Claudia Moscovici

In 1999, the French musician Philippe Cohen Solal cofounded the innovative tango group Gotan Project, along with the Argentinian Eduardo Makaroff and the Swiss Christoph H. Muller. Together they revolutionized Argentine tango music, rendering it fresh and contemporary through electronic remixes, dubbing, beats, breaks as well as numerous fruitful collaborations with other stellar musicians. The name of the band itself is an anagram of the word “tango”, with the order of its two syllables reversed to Gotan. The Gotan Project’s albums, La Revancha del Tango (2001), Lunatico (2006), and Tango 3.0 (2010), achieved international fame, selling over three million records.

A few of the top songs from these three albums, such as “Diferente” (2006) and “La Gloria” (2010), are perfectly complemented by artistic music videos, which are themselves works of art. “Diferente” stages a missed romantic encounter between a young woman and a young man, who are sometimes shown, differently dressed, dancing together, as if in an alternative reality, perhaps their imaginations. The Surrealist touch of the video is amplified by a kaleidoscopic play of mirrors, which double the couple in several mesmerizing scenes that fit beautifully with the melody and evocative lyrics of the song. A few interspersed sequences featuring the young woman in a striking red dress walking throughout the city add an extra cinematic touch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH76CZbqoqI

The music video for “La Gloria” also incorporates Surrealist tropes, but in a different style. It features a young athlete in a boxing ring, sometimes also shown in doubled scenes, flawlessly performing a contemporary dance. Reverse motion sequences, as the young man grabs a fistful of sand, which in reverse replay appears to gather back up into his hand, add a dreamlike dimension to the music video. The tango music is perfectly punctuated by the voice of the legendary Argentinian soccer commentator Victor Hugo Morales calling out the names of the Gotan Project members and exclaiming “Gooootan!” instead of “Gooooal!”, as if he were announcing the plays of a match. In the background, a young woman in a luminous white dress with wings, sporting a short bobbed hairstyle, appears in triplicate on a swing, like a haunting vision of an angelic flapper from the past. At the conclusion of the video, the ethereal images of the three cofounders of the Gotan Project, all sharply dressed in dark pinstripe suits and fedora hats, appear briefly only to gradually dissipate before our eyes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFzk_MX1DCo

While few musicians can outdo such massive worldwide success, Philippe Cohen Solal’s musical career since leaving the Gotan Project in 2010 has been quite extraordinary, both in its artistic quality, with each album a gem in itself, and in its variety of styles and wide range of collaborations with top international musicians. Arguably moving as far away as possible from the tango music associated with the Gotan Project, in 2007 Solal worked with several American musicians in Nashville, Tennessee on the country and bluegrass album Moonshine Sessions. This authentic record includes songs by Jim Lauderdale, Lucas Reynolds, Shawn Camp, Sam Bush and Melonie Cannon; the music of Troy Johnson & The Bluegrass Band; Ronnie Bowman; a surprising country cover of ABBA’s iconic “Dancing Queen” sung by Melonie Cannon; the eclectic jazz and electronic music of Ben Horn; the more traditional country music of Joy Lynn White; culminating in an idyllic and unique song dedicated to his daugher, “Luna’s song”, performed by Robag Verlan-Lanu, which harmoniously combines the Southern flavor of country music with an energetic and youthful tribal beat.

Philippe Cohen Solal followed up this American album with the distinctly French lyrical album Paradis Artificiel(s) (2018). For the first time in his musical career, Solal sings his own songs, translating into music with miraculous ease several of Charles Baudelaire’s most famous poems from Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) as well as the poet’s treatise on the creative effects of hashish and opium, Les Paradis Artificiels (1860). As a nineteenth-century French literature and poetry scholar, I may be somewhat biased, but I believe this is Solal’s best album and greatest creative achievement. Here’s why. It is exceptionally difficult to translate Charles Baudelaire’s poetry--and do it justice--in any language, particularly in the radically different language of music. This is because Baudelaire is one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth-century, who modernized the Romantic poetry of say, Victor Hugo, or Alphone de Lamartine, into the melodious, multifaceted modern poetry that remains very much relevant today, as does the larger-than-life figure of the poet himself. A loner yet a flanneur and a dandy; timid and quiet yet confident of his poetic genius; often solipsistic yet yearning for the company of other writers, artists, women and the crowds; an unapologetic sinner immersed in the seedy underbelly of bohemian Paris yet an aesthetete, Charles Baudelaire embodied the very contradictions of modernity that he depicted in his works. Nothing about the poems in his masterpiece, Les Fleurs du Mal, reads dated; each word, analogy, symbol and phrase seem so perfectly selected that they are virtually untranslatable. Yet I believe that where literary translators of Baudelaire’s poetry in countless languages have fallen short, Philippe Cohen Solal has musically succeeded in his extraordinary lyrical album, Paradis Artificiel(s).

He begins with the song Le club de hachichins, a reference, like the title of the album itself, to Baudelaire’s nonfictional work Les Paradis Artificiels (1860), which depicts the poet’s five years of exploration, with the aid of Dr. Jacques-Joseph Moreau, of the effects of hashish consumed by him and a coterie of famous literary friends, sometimes joined by their mistresses, at the Club de Haschischins located in the Hotel de Lauzun in Paris. His fellow haschichins include a veritable Who’s Who of the most famous writers and poets of the nineteenth century, including Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Gerard de Nerval, Honore de Balzac and Theophile Gautier. In this book, much like the literary precursor he references, Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an Enlish Opium-Eater (1821), Baudelaire aims to study the effects of hashish and opium upon human creativity. Although the author offers many enticing, phantasmogoric depictions of the the multifaceted experience of these and other forms of intoxication, like Gautier and other writers, he ultimately concludes that the experience of being under the influence of drugs (and alcohol) impedes the autonomy and lucidity necessary the fullest artistic and literary expression.

Solal’s first song on the album Paradis Artificiel(s), Le club des hachichins, while an obvious allusion to Baudelaire’s club, narrates the story of the medieval Nizari Ismaili Order of Assassins (1090-1275), sometimes referred to as the Hashashins, founded by Hasan al-Sabbah in the mountains of Persia. Legend has it that Al-Sabbah induced young men, partly through intoxication with hashish, to obey him unquestioningly and assassinate the Muslim and Christian leaders he perceived as a threat. Some contemporary historiographers have recently revised this account, initially passed on by Western Crusaders, then by Marco Polo (who provided the most famous chronicle) and, a few centuries later, by nineteenth-century Orientalists (including Baron Silvestre de Sacy, who pointed out the etymological connection between “Hashish” and “Assassins”). Some revisionist historians now depict the founder of the order, Hasan al-Sabbah, not so much as a cult leader luring young men to murder, but as an enlightened chief well-versed in the Quran, mathematics and astronomy, who gathered an army of followers to Alamut Castle and commanded targeted assassinations in order to protect their group from enemies and rivals. (See an interesting discussion of this revised historiography on the subreddit Ask the Historian, https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1t30i5/how_efficacious_was_hassani_sabbahs_order_of/?rdt=61315).

Regardless of one’s views on their history, the legend of the Haschichins is quite fascinating, and their intriguing tale is brilliantly captured by Solal’s partly spoken, mesmerizing song “Le club des hachichins”. In the second song, “Le Parfum”, Solal showcases his singing talent in a beautiful musical rendition of Baudelaire’s intoxicating poem by the same name. In the next song, he quite literally translates Baudelaire’s sensual and sensuous poem, “Parfum Exotique”, into Portuguese, collaborating with the Canadian musician Samito, who performs a rhythmic, spirited version of the verse. The song “L’invitation au voyage”, based on what is arguably Baudelaire’s most famous poem, combines an alluring female chorus with nostalgic, psychadelic music, synchronizing a rich and multisensory experience.

Solal’s next album, Mind Food (2020), was a long time in the making, launched twenty years after its initial conception. It was originally envisioned as a music score for an imaginary film, which in turn was inspired by the popular blockbuster about the artworld, The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in 1969 and remade in 1999 featuring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. Two decades later, these songs came together in a thoughtful and heartfelt album. One of its most soulful tunes, “Living’s worth loving”, originally performed by David and Robin Batteaux in 1973, is beautifully interpreted here by Gabriela Arnon, a young New York singer based in Paris. The album also includes an instrumental version of this song by the French pianist Christophe Chassol, as well as a jazz version by Solal himself. The song “The Signs” also has several renditions on this album. The first one is an upbeat tune with a retro feel performed by Nivo, followed by a piano version performed once again by Chassol, and a third by the Welsh musician and songwriter Green Gartside, who also sings “Inverno”.

Philippe Cohen Solal is not only a talented musician. He is, above all, a wide-ranging artist and intellectual, who finds inspiration for his music in poetry, literature, history, philosophy and the visual arts. His 2021 album Outsider offers homage to the “outsider” Chicago artist Henry Darger (1892-1973), whose illustrated epic about a world destroyed by war, The Story of the Vivian Girls (1972), was discovered only after his death and thus published posthumously. In this work, Darger depicts the lives of seven little girls caught in the midst of a violent conflict, inspired by the American Civil War (1861-65). The artist visually describes how these innocent children were enslaved and the suffering they experienced as victims of war. In the end, good prevails over evil and the girls are freed. In his engaging album with a retro feel, Solal captures the essence of Darger’s outsider art, calling to mind not only the Civil War era but also, at least to my ears, some of the 1960’s counterculture rock musicals, such as Hair (1968).

His 2023 solo record, Tango Y Tango, harks back to the years of collaboration with Makaroff and Muller, taking classic tango songs and rendering them fresh and contemporary with the electronic beats that characterize the music of the Gotan Project. The album includes the wistful song “Hasta Siempre Amor”, beautifully performed by his longtime collaborator Cristina Vilallonga. In my opinion, the song that most stands out most here is “Non, Non (La Chanson de Jeanne)”, performed by the French singer and actress Rebecca Marder, with tango instrumental music in the background and sultry lyrics, which are reminiscent in their disavowal of obvious feelings of love to Serge Gainsbourg’s and Jane’s Birkin famous “Je t’aime…moi nonplus” (1969).

Solal’s latest album, 75010, is inspired by the ethnically and culturally diverse place where he lives, the artsy and cosmopolitan 10^th Arrondissement of Paris. It includes a hybrid mix of songs, ranging from the melange of hip hop, pop and rap of “Soleil, Etoile”, sung by Jodie Coste, which celebrates tolerance and the unity of humanity as well as cultural diversity; to the exotic “Elmas”, sung in his native language by the Turkish pop star Uzay Hepari; to the critical stance of “Ici, c’est comme ca”, which features the French-American musician Charlelie Couture singing about the negative aspects of French culture and bureaucracy; to a fantastic cover of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Kashmir”; to the evocative song “Dans la nuit” featuring the French actress Judith Chemla, and concluding with the melancholy tune “It’s time to say goodbye” interpreted by the French vocal trio Alfa Martians. For me, the highlight of this stellar album is the hauntingly beautiful and inspiring song in Persian, “Zan Zendegi Azad”, meaning “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which alludes to the couragous feminist protests in Iran sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 and is poignantly performed by the classically trained Franco-Iranian singer Ariana Vafadari. The harmonious melange of such diverse genres, languages and cultures in this album offers an eloquent musical testimony to the exciting multicultural energy of Paris.

To have such a broad artistic scope and immense musical success in one’s career requires a vast intellectual curiosity, creativity, as well as the benefit of a rich life experience. Influenced by a multitude of cultures and finding strength and inspiration in his family life as well as in his enduring love of music, Solal brings a deep and intense creative passion to each album. His impressive and enduring career speaks to his adaptability, resilience and authenticity.

Solal began his career during the 1980’s and early 90’s as a successful music producer of commercial songs, working for several large music studios, including Polydor Records, where he launched the album Raft that sold 650,000 copies; Mercury Music Studio, where he lauched the career of the pop singer Zazie, and Virgin Records, where he was a music director. Ultimately, however, this more conventional career path did not fulfill him. After leaving the big record companies and embarking on a brief but catastrophic partnership with another musician, he had had enough. In 1995, he launched his own record label, Ya Basta!, which defiantly signals through its very name that he was done being directed by others and that, henceforth, he would follow his own artistic path in life. In his extraordinary musical journey spanning three decades, Philippe Cohen Solal took advantage of his creative freedom, unwavering curiosity, fruitful collaborations with other talented international musicians and, above all, extraordinary talent to explore radically different musical styles, making each one of his albums a standout success.