Zak Laughed

Zak Laughed conceals the identity of Zacharie Boissau, just 15 when he recorded this debut album. On first pass, Boissau sounds like a girl – he’s gone on record to say he wanted to record before his voice broke. He’s also said he “grew up listening to Dylan and the Velvet Underground,” read Kerouac and has provided evidence of a what seems to be a cosmopolitan upbringing: he’s accompanied his professional photographer dad Rémi Boissau on assignments in Morocco. He began playing live in Clermont-Ferrand at 14 with the encouragement of Dionysus’ Mathias Malzieu, who he’d met at one of his father’s photo sessions. Although he’s French, the album is delivered in clear, colloquial, barely-accented English. So, just a regular kid.
Opening cut ‘December Song’ sets ‘The Last Memories Of Old House’ up as singer-songwriter Americana. Banjo and lap steel colour an acoustic reflection that sounds as wintery as the title. Boissau’s folkly lilt carries forward into the slightly less downtempo ‘A Letter for Emily’, where the light and shade is provided by some gentle trombone. Suddenly though, ‘Each Day’ is underpinned by the strummed electric guitar of the third or fourth Velvet’s albums – a sound that’s echoed over the years through the early Modern Lovers and the Magic Numbers. ‘Sweet Jane’ (i.e. fourth-album Velvets) gets a namecheck on ‘Queen or Sweet’, which features some lovely string accompaniment. Another track, ‘Ladybird and Bob Dylan’, nails that other inspiration. The 14 songs pretty much conform to these models, with plunking keyboard sometimes replacing the guitar. Elsewhere, the keyboard wash includes a Mellotron-like flute tone. The rocking, just-about-The-Strokes ‘Apologies Song’ is another highlight.
Boissau’s lyrics are as precocious as would be expected: reflections on mood, estrangement, disassociation, anomie, identity and self image. Girls too. Furrowed-brows win over unbridled fun. “I want to be a great rocker….yes, I want to be a great folk singer, no I do not want to be like Mick Jagger,” he declares without irony in ‘Ladybird and Bob Dylan’.
It’s impossible to divorce what is known about Zacharie Boissau the teenager from this album. It is a stunning achievement for a 15 year-old, mature even. Charming too. But the professed influences are generic and have little to offer after being strip-mined for so many years. Parading them so literally with minimal new spin may be a result of naivety, but it goes some way towards leavening that charm.