Stream: Claude Fontaine, ‘Hot Tears’

Kevin Bronson on April 4th, 2019

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Since debuting early this year with the lilting “Cry for Another,” L.A. songstress Claude Fontaine has been infiltrating playlists far and wide with her dreamy reggae-pop — made with a dream lineup of the genre’s greats.

To recount: Her album “Claude Fontaine,” arriving April 26 via Innovative Leisure, features the talents of guitarist Tony Chin (who played with the likes of Althea and Donna, King Tubby and Dennis Brown), Brazilian drummer Airto Moreira (Miles Davis, Astrud Gilberto, Chick Corea, et al); bassist Ronie McQueen (Steel Pulse), drummer Rock Deadrick (Ziggy Marley), guitarist Fabiano Do Nascimento, percussionist Gibi Dos Santos (Sergio Mendes) and bassist Andre De Santanna (Flora Purim). “It was surreal and magical,” she says of the making her album. “I cried. To watch those songs come to life … it’s why we do what we do.”

What hath they wrought?

It’s the sound of the classic reggae records the L.A. native discovered while crate-digging at a record store on London’s Portobello Road as applied to the fragile-voiced heartache and hopefulness of a wandering California soul. The latest single “Hot Tears” sounds as if the likes of Françoise Hardy or Keren Ann were recruited to sing for Trojan Records. Let those tears flow.

||| Stream: “Hot Tears”