Take the playfulness of Beck and mix it artfully with the louche French cool of Serge Gainsbourg, and you have, in an elegant nutshell, Gallic song man Philippe Katerine. Were you the kind of chic, bilingual man-about-town who reads GQ France, you’d know all about the singer from the magazine’s recent profile: “Katerine cultivates an image of a reserved, poetic boy,” says the text in a smokily accented drawl (one supposes), continuing, “he’s rather well mannered.”
In fact, you’d know who Katerine is if you were French, period. He started making records in the ’90s, around the time of fellow dandies Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) and Neil Hannon (the Divine Comedy), and he’s a bona fide pop hit-maker at home and in Canada.
So we raise a glass to the French Institute in New York for hosting this pre–Bastille Day showcase, wherein he will perform songs from his latest album, 52 reprises dans l’espace—which reimagines classic French chanson, as well as golden oldies from the likes of Bing Crosby and Burt Bacharach. If knocking back shots to house music at a hotel pool party is your idea of fun, you might find this show somewhat lacking. But if you’d like to dip a toe in something cool, crisp and rather silly, Katerine may very well be your homme.—Sophie Harris
$30 tickets are available through Time Out Offers until July 11, 2013.
Follow Sophie Harris on Twitter: @SophieMeve