Review
Genre and Mood
Pupkulies & Rebecca’s “Fou de toi” is chanson carried by house: electronic, romantic in its title alone, “crazy about you”, and dreamy and playful in the way the duo’s own biography describes their music, songs made for dreaming and dancing.
Song Summary
It is the third of ten tracks on Looking for the Sea, released by the German label Normoton in April 2012, and at three minutes and thirty-three seconds it is among the album’s shortest songs. Its label describes the album as more chansons than tracks, sung in English and French, with house as the main thread, though in a European rather than an American sense: Paris and Berlin, not Chicago. This one is sung in French.
Musical Breakdown
No source describes “Fou de toi” part by part, so this breakdown stays with what is documented about the album it belongs to.
The Voice
Rebecca Hannah Gropp writes the lyrics and sings, in English, German and French across the duo’s records. Reviewing an earlier album, Cokemachineglow heard her voice move between Françoise Hardy and Beth Gibbons depending on the mood.
The Beat and the Sounds
Janosch Blaul makes the beats. For this album, the label says, some hi-hats were made from rustling leaves, old synthesizers sit beside an organetta bought at a flea market, and every sound was chosen to have room to breathe.
Concepts in Focus
A house groove is usually built for a long night: a steady kick, off-beat hats, repetition. Here it serves a short song instead, and the label’s phrase, chansons with heart rather than tracks, is a good way to hear it. Notice how the groove supports the voice instead of taking over.
Hi-hats made from rustling leaves are a homemade kind of sampling: record a real sound, cut it short and play it as a rhythm. The label does not say which songs use the leaves, so listen for a hiss that sounds more like the outdoors than a drum machine. For a similar soft French vocal over house, compare CLAAP!, S.A.N.T.A.N.A. – Dimanche.
Artistic Context
Pupkulies & Rebecca are Janosch Blaul and Rebecca Hannah Gropp, active since 2006, whose debut came out on Normoton. Looking for the Sea was their fourth album, recorded mainly in the south of France, like their second. Producers such as Acid Pauli & Nu later remixed their songs, and the Amsterdam Dance Event names their sound “Afro Chanson House”.
Impact and Reception
The label claimed their following had grown without the help of the press, and the record found few published reviews. “Fou de toi” lived on in the clubs instead: Wareika remixed it twice for Rotary Cocktail in June 2012, and in 2020 DMC called the Parallells remix “a beautiful track for beautiful weather”. Start with the original, the short song all those remixes grew from.
