LOUIS PHILIPPE The man. The music. The style. The cooking. How do you define ‘cool’ ? Is it a state of mind, the way someone looks, the things they say, the things they do ? Or is it just .. it’s either there, or it isn’t ? Perhaps it’s the latter. Perhaps cool means never having to say you’re cool, or even think about it. Whatever it may be, as far as I’m concerned Louis Philippe, legendary El records crooner alias BBC correspondent, football writer, chef extraordinaire and wine buff Philippe Auclair, has it in spades. He may never have had a hit record in the UK, nor be a universally recognised name, but he’s been a principal boy in the story of virtually all the record labels that have traded on a staunchly independent aesthetic of ‘cool’ since the mid-1980s. He’s also been remarkably influential in Japan. Do you like Cornelius ? Pizzicato Five ? Kahimi Karie ? Most of Japan’s coolest record labels, such as Trattoria and L’Appareil-Photo-bis, are directly descended from the manifesto, aesthetic and style code of Mike Alway’s El label that featured Louis so prominently.
SO WHO IS THIS LOUIS GUY ? Well, he lives in London now, but he comes from the northern part of France, and made his recording bow in 1985 under the name The Border Boys, for the Belgian Crepescule label best-known for Scots nearly-man Paul Haig. He split from his group The Arcadians in 1986, after realising that his solo demos were better than the versions the band had recorded– the results later appeared as the superlative ‘Let’s Pretend’ collection a decade later. Louis’ name is probably most synonymous with the El label, which he recorded five singles and three albums between 1986 and 1989. Several tracks from this period are available on the vast number of compilations taken from El’s catalogue, particularly the singles ‘Like Nobody Do’, ‘Guess I’m Dumb’ (a Brian Wilson cover, and an NME single of the week) and the wonderful ‘You Mary You’. El couldn’t last forever, and when it all ended in 1989, Louis had to look elsewhere.
	SO WHY JAPAN ? You see, there was this young guy Keigo Oyamada – you may know him better as Cornelius – anyway, he rather liked Louis and the whole 80s neo-aco pop scene, as anyone familiar with Keigo’s former group Flipper’s Guitar will know. After setting up his now-legendary Trattoria label, who better to release than one of his teenage heroes ? All of a sudden, Louis was having hits in Japan, with the ‘Delta Kiss’ and ‘Sunshine’ albums, for a label that fitted all the Anglo-French-Japanese style lines of El. WHY SHOULD WE CARE ? Why ? Because he’s a lovely guy who makes beautiful records, independently of any fads or company influences, because he’s consistently stylish but never fashionable, and because he’s been an influence to everything that’s good about the current ‘easy-indie-pop’ scene both in England and in Japan, from Baxendale and Stereolab, to Yukari Fresh and Hideki Kaji.
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