After collaborating on a couple of songs for Project Gemini’s 2024 album Colours And Light, Paul Osbourne and Wendy Martinez have now got together for a 6-track mini-LP. Taking inspiration from French art of the 1960s and `70s, Time Stands Still / Le temps s’arrete is an authentic blend of folk and funk. Osbourne’s groovy, grungy bass powering the psyche-styled pieces. Martinez’s evocative vocals summoning the spirit of Brigettes Bardot and Fontaine, Jane Birkin and Valérie Lagrange. 

In the detail, vintage synths alternate between high-pitched squeals and raga drone. Spooky Mellotron whistling accompanying acoustic ballads, like some Czech film soundtrack. The vibe very much that of Stereolab and Broadcast’s record collections, and Finders Keepers’ cult back catalogue. 

There are tabla touches and Requiem Pour Un Con congas, painting pictures of  student sit-ins and acidic, political, protesting hippies. The set spinning like a counter culture score for Barbet Schroeder’s More, or the swinging, hip, Nouvelle Vague movies of Jean-Luc Goddard, Francois Truffaut and Agnes Varda. Songs in the vein of the obscure 45s that David Holmes curated for TV’s Killing Eve. Cinematic like Trees Speak’s modern Giallo gone Parisian. 

Sexy, and seductive, heady and hypnotic, heavy, Hendrix-esque guitars howl in the distance, and it’s impossible to ignore the influence of Jean-Claude Vannier and Serge Gainsbourg. The suite strongly suggesting a similar storytelling, narrative quality as their tale of Melody Nelson. 

Project Gemini & Wendy Martinez’s Time Stands Still / Le temps s’arrete can be ordered directly from Mr Bongo.