The tragical start and end of Deux Filles… even Milli Vanilli didn’t drive their con that far
The short, mysterious career of the female French duo Deux Filles started and ended in tragedy. Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule met as teenagers at a holiday pilgrimage to Lourdes, during which Coule’s mother died of an incurable lung disease, and Forque’s mother was killed and her father paralyzed in an auto accident. The two teens bonded over their shared grief and worked through their bereavement with music. However, after recording two albums and playing throughout Europe and North America, Forque and Coule disappeared without a trace in North Africa in 1984 during a trip to visit Algiers.
This would be a terribly sad story… if a word of it were true. In reality, Deux Filles were Simon Fisher Turner, former child star/teen idol and future soundtrack composer, and his mate Colin Lloyd Tucker. Turner and Tucker left an early incarnation of The The in 1981 to pursue another musical direction.
Turner and Tucker strictly maintained the fiction throughout the duo’s career. Not only did they pose in drag for the album covers, the duo once even played live without the audience realizing that the tragic French girls on-stage were actually a pair of blokes from south London.
Deux Filles released two albums through Turner and Tucker’s Papier Mache label, 1982’s “Silence & Wisdom” and 1983’s “Double Happiness”. In 2016 Deux Filles reappeared with the album “Space & Time” and in 2021 it was followed by “Shadow Farming”.
Both first albums are included now in a re-release via Dark Entries records: “Silence & Wisdom / Double Happiness”. All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley.
Check it out.
About Simon Fisher Turner
Simon Fisher Turner is an English musician, songwriter, composer, producer and actor.
After portraying Ned East in the 1971 BBC TV adaptation of “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” and roles in films such as “The Big Sleep” (1978), Turner rose to fame as a teenage star in Britain when his mentor, Jonathan King, released Turner’s eponymous first album on UK Records in 1973. For a period of two years Turner was a member of The Gadget and also joined The The. He has used several names as a recording artist, including Simon Fisher Turner, The King of Luxembourg, Deux Filles and Simon Turner. He continues to record albums for Mute Records as Simon Fisher Turner.
Turner was also a member of The Portsmouth Sinfonia Orchestra, and plays clarinet on the orchestra’s only live album recorded at The Albert Hall, London.
About Colin Lloyd Tucker…
Since his teenage years, working as an engineer for the De Wolfe music library from their Soho base in the 1970s he has been involved in all aspects of music production. Here he developed skills in the art of tape manipulation in those far off, pre-digital times, skills he would pass on to Matt Johnson and Simon Fisher Turner, both of whom he still works with today.
As a singer/musician he signed a management deal with Tony Calder in the mid 1980s. Ex-Immediate Records boss and co Stones manager Calder had been introduced to Colin’s work by model Linda Keith. A single was produced, “Head”, that obtained little commercial success.
Unhappy with Calder’s desire to turn him into a pop star Tucker walked away and began a journey along a much less commercial, though more independent route. Various discs with different independent companies were to follow. He also formed Papier Mache Records with Simon Turner and together they issued two well-regarded long players as Deux Filles.
The 1990s saw Colin sporadically issuing the odd solo album and cropping up as a guest vocalist on Kate Bush’s “Red Shoes” album (Tucker also appeared as a devil in the accompanying film). Before the decade was out he made the album “Skyscraping” with Paddy Bush under the group name Bushtucker.
In 2006 he formed his own Samphire Records as an outlet for his solo work producing a string of diverse releases.
A re-union with Matt Johnson cumulated in appearance in The The’s “Inertia Variations Film” and “Trilogy” box set with Tucker performing Johnson’s “Bugle Boy” (2017).
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