British singer-songwriter Elvis Costello has released a new EP containing French versions of songs from his 2020 album Hey Clockface. Titled La Face de Pendule à Coucou, the EP includes the track No Flag (en Français), sung by Iggy Pop.
When asked about the difficulties of singing in a language that's not his native tongue, Iggy Pop said: “There’s a uniqueness to the French language. No other language has vowels that sound like that. Learning a song that’s as quick as No Flag took a month of practice because my lips weren’t used to those combinations.
"I [worked on it] for 40 minutes a day for about five weeks. You don’t want to do too much work on it at once or it’s not fun anymore."
On top of Pop, the record features collaborators such as Steve Nieve, alongside various Parisian artists including Tshegue, Isabelle Adjiani, and AJUQ.
La Face de Pendule à Coucou was shared digitally March 26, and is to be released on vinyl this summer via Concord Records.
Costello has also shared the French-adapted lyric video for the track Hetty O’Hara Confidential, which you can listen to below.
