Musique

Eux Autres

  • Posted on 08/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Eux Autres are a loud, indie-rocking trio (Heather, Nicholas, Yoshi) from Portland, Oregan who are very influenced by French ye-ye. Their new album Broken Bow is just out, and features one great French track, Jamais. On earlier albums, they did a wonderful version of the Salut les Copains-theme, among other French songs. Though they mainly sing in English. From their bio: “Eux Autres write compact songs with sparse instrumentation. Their music has been unfairly described as “fun.” But while the surface of the songs might seem nonchalant, the lyrics offer skewed observations and fierce barbs. Most of their songs are about a) military history b) being “done wrong” or c) sports. Sadly, Eux Autres are the only people who notice this. The band sounds like the unrequited love song Doug Martsch would have penned for Francoise Hardy, had the time/space continuum conveniently collapsed.”
They also do Christmas-songs, see the videos for those here. EA were featured on the old FS blog, here. Picture stolen from here.

Eux Autres – Jamais

La Féline

  • Posted on 07/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

La Féline is a French trio, led by singer Agnes Gayraud, that won the2009 edition of the En français dans le text-bandcontest from Discograph Records. They had strong competition (from Maelis, for instance). The video for their great song Mystery Train (an English title, but sung in French) was just released.  La Féline released four EP’s so far. The bandcontest for this year is already in it’s final stage. This contestant sounds and looks good. And I like the voice of this girl.

La Féline – Mystery train

Royksopp goes Jarre

  • Posted on 07/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Norwegian electronica-duo Röyksopp made a free downloadable cover of that beautiful Cantique de Noël Christmas classic. It sounds like Jean-Michel Jarre making a soft-porn soundtrack, your room will get an orange glow instantly and your carpet will look very shagable. Go HERE to download.

Noir Désir (2)

  • Posted on 03/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Guestpost by Roger Grund on Noir Désir, in remembrance of one of France’s greatest bands:

French Rock sometimes suffers from lack of identity, however most definitely not in the case of Noir Désir. Loosely fit and jazzy, Noir Désir’s music evolved in the sun-scorched afternoons of the south of France rather than in the cold and damp mornings of Northern Europe: A ton étoile is the Rock-equivalent of Van Gogh’s sunflower paintings.

I first heard A ton étoile by Noir Désir whilst in transit in the Sahara in the nineties, when a southernly wind carried a weak televised TV5 signal from across the Mediterranean. What stood out on the decripit TV in the caravanserai was a loud and broadly brushed guitar sound that has remained an enigma ever since. Carried by the unique guitar phrasing, there is the emotional voice of the singer, whose name is Bertrand Cantat, about whom we learned much more later on.

Sous la lumière en plein
et dans l’ombre en silence
si tu cherches un abri
Inaccessible
Dis toi qu’il n’est pas loin et qu’on y brille
A ton étoile

Noir Désir – A ton étoile
Noir Désir – A ton étoile (Yann TIersen remix)

Noir Desir

  • Posted on 02/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Noir Désir called it quits, due to “emotional, human and musical differences”. You could see this coming from a few miles, after leadsinger Bertrand Cantat was released from prison after his conviction for murder. Heated debates in France after Cantat and his compadres left off where they were forced to quit six years before. Which leaves us with a lot of very good albums, Des visages des figures being the most succesful outside of France. There are quite a few ND-covers (this one, f.i.), but I’m posting only the Le vent nous portera-versions here, mostly done by girls. Sophie Hunger is from Switzerland, Victoria Vox from the US, Regina Lund was born in Finland but lives in Sweden, Les Charbonniers de L’Enfer are Canadian. The remix of Le vent… was made by Rubber Room.

Noir Désir – Le vent nous portera
Noir Désir – Le vent nous portera (remix)
Sophie Hunger – Le vent nous portera
Les Charbonniers de l’enfer – Le vent nous portera
Regina Lund – Le vent nous portera
Victoria Vox – Le vent nous portera

C’est chic

  • Posted on 01/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Looking for the Perfect Christmas Gift? C’est Chic!, a wonderful compilation on the reliable Ace/Kent reissue label. It features ’24 hand-picked gems form France, epicenter of the 1960s yé-yé-girl phenomenon’. A few hits, like Anna Karina’s Roller Girl and France Gall’s Laisse tomber les filles, but a lot of fairly obscure gems indeed. Like Michèle Torr’s Non, à tous les garçons. A song written by Serge Gainsbourg. Or the baroque Je ne sais pas ce que je veux (a cover by sixties-band Nirvana,reworked by Hardy herself). A thick booklet with great info (main informant: Graham from the excellent Ready Steady Girls) comes along with it. This is no cd you’d want to download, this is one you want to own. And I’m not saying that ’cause this blog is mentioned as a reference source. A nice surprise.

Françoise Hardy – Je ne sais ce que je veux
Nirvana – Tiny Goddess
Michèle Torr – Non, à tous les garçons

UPDATE: FS-visitor Teyo mentioned in the comments that Andreas Dorau sampled the Hardy-track. For a wonderful song, I might add.
Andreas Dorau – Allein im Park

Santa, Je t’aime

  • Posted on 29/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

In addition to the opening of my Christmas musicblog, I will post French (or French themed) Christmas songs on this blog too. The Superions are a side-project of Fred Schneider, singer of the B-52’s. It’s synth-driven and funny. Well, they mean it to be funny. Decide for yourself, listen to their album Destination…Christmas here. One of the tracks that caught my attention was Santa, Je t’aime. This is a very loose rework of one of the very first Je t’aime… moi non plus-parodys by Bourvil. Funny? Mwoh. Sexy? We heard far sexier tunes on this blog. Still, it’s something that’s appropriate for this blog. And I can post nice pictures with it. So there.

The Superions – Santa, je t’aime

UPDATE: there’s a VIDEO

Gateau Blaster

  • Posted on 26/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

Comic Strip is not the first French rap crew to use a Serge Gainsbourg sample, but they sure are the funniest. This is their English bio (from here): ‘COMIC STRIP is an up and coming french rap band. Led by freaking MC Wapi alongside producers TAMBOUR BATTANT , COMIC STRIP is about telling funny stories , sometimes with a hidden sense to it, and sometimes not. It s about hip hop and it s about electronics. It’s about “rap français”, and it s about UK grime, and US HipHop, and russian hardcore techno (well not quite sure bout the last one). Burning stages with heavy beats and an unusual sense of humor, it s meant to stay on the stage, and there s no firing those crazy unemployed B Boyz’
You can download their album Gateau Blaster for free (or a small donation, make sure doing so) HERE.

Comic Strip – Comic Strip Song
Of course, that’s this Gainsbourg song they’ve sampled.

So many filles (2)

  • Posted on 26/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

Another quick update, with Beatrice, Rachel and the long lost Lizzy Ling. The latter finally has a new album out, on which she works her Asian magic. Odd songs, with sensual qualities. Really really dig this track:

Lizzy Ling – la fille d’ombre

After a few English collaborations (this one, and this one), Beatrice/CdP reappears with a featured spot on a Omnikrom track. They think a little differently about ‘having a flow’ in Canada, I presume. But CdP’s guestvocals work really well. See the video HERE.

Omnikrom ft. Coeur de Pirate – Dans tes rêves

Rachel Des Bois’ (pictured) third album is out. Had not heard from her before, but thanks to this blog’s main pusher FransS she came on my radar. She might be a tad to rockish for most, but this is a very fine song:

Rachel Des Bois – Mon amour, je rentre

← Newer Posts
Older Posts →