ML is the moniker of Maria-Laetitia Mattern, a Belgian singer who was featured earlier on this blog. Her music and voice refer to Hardy, Feist, Jacklin. ‘La fête’ is a delicate song, written in one go on a national holiday, about how everyone around you is happy, and you’re just not feeling it.
Also very nice, from 2022, this collab with Flore Benguigui (ex-L’imperatrice):
Album coming up, posted a few tracks on this blog before. This new single is upbeat, sunny, and features those breathy vocals of Melyssa Lemieux in a glorious fashion:
Melyssa was also part of the tender, more folksy Libelle:
So, i got this cover of Françoise Hardy’s Message Personnel by ElodieO. An updated version, with the desperation of the original in tact.
It’s one of the most gorgeous songs of Hardy, and covered many times. Here are a handful of remarkable versions. Like this one, in English:
A duet version, by two great vocalists:
France covering Françoise:
This is what they call a ‘sad banger’, crying in the discotheque:
Lots of fx, almost shoegaze:
Oh, the voice of Eva de Marce. It’s like running your fingers over a silk négligé. Like the first sun on a late spring morning, peeping through the curtains. Like fat strawberries, bursting on your tongue. Eva is the singer of Mexican duo Los Eclipses, but other producers love to add her vocals to their songs too. Like Jiony, from Mexico too. On his new album, Eva sings two tracks. Trip hop vibes, fat beats & sultriness.
Not the first time Jiony asked Eva to sing a French song, this is from 2022:
New name on the block (ok well, new to me, she’s been making records since 2020), with a lotta soul & sexuality. Oddly enough, this video is just a fragment of the full song:
This is the full song:
I was clicking away on Spotify, when I suddenly heard this GEM of a song by Kolinga. Kept listening. And again. What a voice. What emotional depth.
Kolinga writes about this track: ‘This is the most necessary song I have ever written. In the midst of perinatal grief, while I was still bleeding, these are the words and sounds I needed to put down. Amidst the taboo, the pain, the guilt that we are told never to feel. I wanted to bring all these emotions to life, to freeze them forever, not only for myself but also for all those who couldn’t do it, all those who no one wanted to listen to. This song is also for that wonderful soul who did me the honor of accompanying me on this journey, a request for forgiveness on behalf of our societies that violently reject everything that cannot be seen. All this, in the most complete vulnerability of just a guitar and a voice.’
One of the stronger songs on the Cavale album, with just a piano:
Very catchy duet between these two. Synth pop with a rock’n roll bass.
Lianor = Igor & Emilie, who make music that links to atmospheric triphop and dreampop from the 90s, as much as it does to 80s synth soundtracks. I first heard the interesting groove of Holictave, from their debut album. Now there’s a new single that is as mysterious & wondrous as that first track.
This is a home session, that kicks off with Holictave
J’aime le synth pop francais! So when I read on Instagram that there’s a compilation with mostly obscure synth pop singles from the 1980s, I had to take a listen. There’s only one conclusion: this is some serious synth ! Obscure, sexy, these we’re never real hits and not every song is great, but for the aficionado (like me) this is mouthwatering. Check out this track by Corinne Tell from 1987:
Or this gem, from 1983 by Fabienne Stoko:
Not on Bandcamp, but on YouTube, this disco’ish song by Kelly Way from 1984: