Audio Mixers: Mark Linett; Elinor Blake.

Recording information: Your Place Or Mine Studios, Glendale, CA (03/1994-07/1994).

Photographer: Rocky Schenck.

1995's Chick Habit was a complete turnaround from the ultra-twee and largely acoustic pop of April March's self-titled debut EP. Taking off from a lifelong interest in French music and culture (the former Elinor Blake studied in the country as a teenager), Chick Habit is a note-perfect re-creation of French ye-ye music of the 1960s. March, whose voice is a dead ringer for France Gall's similarly perky tones, borrows heavily from Gall's style and repertoire. The title track is a fairly literal translation of one of Gall's biggest Serge Gainsbourg-penned hits, "Laisse Tomber des Filles," given a "Peter Gunn"-style twang guitar track and performed with a punky snarl. (The opening track is the same song performed in March's note-perfect French.) The remaining tunes are covers of other ye-ye songs, with the highlights being Jacques Dutronc's "Le Temps de L'Amour" (a 1966 hit for Dutronc's wife, Françoise Hardy), given a smoky reading highlighted by a Dick Dale-style surf guitar played by guest star Jonathan Richman (a friend of producer and multi-instrumentalist Andy Paley, who leads the excellent band), and another dip into Gall's catalog, the dreamy "Cet Air-La." April March would, in varying degrees, explore this French pop obsession over her next several albums, but this is its purest manifestation. ~ Stewart Mason

Following stints in the pastiche girl-group The Pussywillows and the indiepop trio The Shitbirds, New York-bred animator Elinor Blake moved to Los Angeles and assumed the persona of '60s-style Gallic songstress April March. Blake is fluent in French and sings in the Francoise Hardy/France Gall mode. Most of CHICK HABIT consists of covers of such classic '60s French pop hits as Gall's "Cet Air La" and Jacques Dutronc's "Les Temps De L'Amour." But the crowning touch comes with the title track, where Blake adds her sweetly ironic original lyrics to a Serge Gainsbourg melody. Though unfortunately brief at a mere eight songs in just over 20 minutes, CHICK HABIT is nonetheless a perfect introduction to both April March and to the glories of '60s French pop.