NEWS… BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT
At first she was Heloïse Letissier. Then they were Chris. Now he is Redcar – a new creation, or perhaps the fully realised form, of where Christine And The Queens was headed all along.
Don’t be misled by the stage name; the Queens, much like Marina’s former Diamonds, are notional, not a backing group – a tribute to the drag acts that inspired this French art-pop solo artist early in his progress.
Redcar is a transgender persona, evidently, although he also strongly evokes the lesbian dandy, that female figure in male dress who was a fixture of the 1930s demi-monde – a suave Count Grazinski to Letissier’s Julie Andrews, for anyone who remembers Blake Edwards’ 1982 film Victor/Victoria, remarkably gender-fluid for its time.
The mood, the aesthetic of the third Christine And The Queens album strongly evokes both eras: the louche, melancholic, soulful pre-war Parisian cabaret; the glistening, darkly romantic synth-pop of the early 1980s. Love, passion, obsession, possession, surrender: these are its themes.