Martine-Elisabeth Mercier Descloux (16 December 1956 – 20 April 2004) was a French musician, singer-songwriter, and composer.

Early life

Mercier Descloux grew up in Lyon, France, but returned to her native Paris in her teens to attend art school. With her partner

Michel Esteban Michel Antoine Gaston Esteban (born 7 May 1951) is a French record producer, record company executive, cultural center director and former magazine editor, who founded the Paris shop Harry Cover in 1973, was influential in the early development ...

, she helped establish the store Harry Cover, temple of the

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

movement in France, and the new wave magazine ''Rock News''. She struck up friendships with

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author, and photographer. Her 1975 debut album '' Horses'' made her an influential member of the New York City-based punk rock movement. Smith has fu ...

and

Richard Hell Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television (band), ...

when visiting New York in 1975, and both contributed material to her first book, ''Desiderata''. She and Esteban moved to New York in 1977, meeting Michael Zilkha, with whom Esteban formed

ZE Records ZE Records was a New York–based record label, started in 1978 by Michael Zilkha and Michel Esteban, and closed in 1984. It was reestablished by Esteban in 2003; its website was last updated in 2019. History Michael Zilkha (b. 1954) is a Br ...

Musical career

With guitarist D.J. Barnes (Didier Esteban), Mercier Descloux formed the performance art duo Rosa Yemen, and recorded an eponymous mini-album for

in 1978. The following year, ZE released her solo debut LP '' Press Color''. Self-taught as a guitarist, she expressed herself as a minimalist within the

no wave No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and r ...

genre, concentrating on single-note lines combined with wrong-note harmonies and funky rhythms. While the record did not sell well, she did tour the USA and Europe.

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...

boss

Chris Blackwell Christopher Percy Gordon Blackwell OJ (born 22 June 1937) is a Jamaican-British former record producer and the founder of Island Records, which has been called "one of Britain's great independent labels". According to the Rock and Roll Hall ...

bankrolled the sessions in Nassau, Bahamas for her second album '' Mambo Nassau'', with

Compass Point All Stars Compass Point Studios was a music recording studio in the Bahamas, founded in 1977 by Chris Blackwell, the owner of Island Records. The concept of the studio was of a recording facility supported by in-house sets of artists, musicians, producers ...

engineer

Steven Stanley Steven J. C. Stanley (born July 11, 1958), is a Jamaican audio engineer, record producer and keyboardist who has worked in the reggae, dub and rock music genres since 1975, most notably with Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club and Black Uhuru. Sta ...

and keyboardist

Wally Badarou Waliou Jacques Daniel Isheola "Wally" Badarou (born 22 March 1955) is a French musician. Born in France with ancestry from Benin, West Africa, Badarou is known for his close association with the English group Level 42, and for his prolific wor ...

co-writing and producing. The album was influenced by African music as well as

art rock Art rock is a subgenre of rock music that generally reflects a challenging or avant-garde approach to rock, or which makes use of modernist, experimental, or unconventional elements. Art rock aspires to elevate rock from entertainment to an ar ...

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African-Americans in the ...

and

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

. While the record was unsuccessful in the U.S., it won her a contract with CBS Records in France. Returning to France, she released two singles, then traveled through Africa, drawing on the music of Soweto for the infectious "Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles?" ("But where have the gazelles gone?"), a hit in France in 1984, and the album '' Zulu Rock'', with producer Adam Kidron. Collaborating with Kidron as a producer, she recorded the albums ''One for the Soul'' (1986) in Brazil with the jazz trumpeter

Chet Baker Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool". Baker earned much attention and ...

and later ''Suspense'' (1988) in London with the American musician Mark Cunningham of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

. She also acted, composed film scores, and wrote poetry. In the mid 1990s, she moved to Corsica and devoted herself to painting and writing an unpublished novel.

Death

In 2003, she was diagnosed with ovarian and colon cancers, from which she died the following year. Fellow

musician and ZE labelmate

Cristina Cristina is a female given name, and it is also a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Cristina (daughter of Edward the Exile), 11th-century English princess *Cristina (singer), Cristina Monet-Palaci (1956–2020), American ...

dedicated a song on the 2004 re-release of her album ''

Sleep It Off ''Sleep It Off'' is the second album from no wave pop singer Cristina (singer), Cristina. Music ''Sleep It Off'' was produced by Don Was. The songs were written by Cristina (all lyrics, except for the covers) collaborating with Was and her backi ...

'' to Mercier Descloux, "chère copine in adversity...In loving memory of her talent, her courage, and her kindness." After her death, Esteban worked with

Light in the Attic Records Light in the Attic Records is an independent record label that was established in 2002 in Seattle, Washington by Matt Sullivan. The label is known for its roster of reissue projects and for its distribution catalog. Light in the Attic has re-re ...

to reissue some of her recordings.

Albums

* ''Rosa Yemen – Live in N.Y.C July 1978'' (1978) * '' Press Color'' (1979) * '' Mambo Nassau'' (1981) * '' Zulu Rock'' (1984) * ''One for the Soul'' (1985) * ''Suspense'' (1988)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mercier Descloux, Lizzy 1956 births 2004 deaths CBS Records artists Deaths from colorectal cancer in France Deaths from ovarian cancer French women guitarists French film score composers French rock guitarists French rock singers French women rock singers French women singer-songwriters French singer-songwriters Island Records artists Musicians from Paris No wave musicians Musicians from Lyon Philips Records artists Polydor Records artists Post-punk musicians Singers from Paris ZE Records artists 20th-century French guitarists 20th-century French women singers French women punk rock singers 20th-century women guitarists