Anxious synths and a solid beat make up the spacious, simple sound of “Commando of Love,” the new single from French-punks, The Anals. Released on Vacouver, CA imprint Sweet Rot in late June, “Commando” does more with less, employing guitars, synths, drums, and vocals that are all set to attack. Raw and abrasive, growling trance-like drones expand to mesh with agressive drumming and a lyrical delivery that invokes a sense of urgency.
The 7” marks the first (and only?) record from the Metz, France duo who state they’re “here to beat girls and boys with love and passion.” Further information on the band is slim at best, and my French is about as good as that new Hold Steady record, but the label states that half of the band passed away in late 2007 and “The Anals are done.” It’s a fucking great first/last single if that’s the case. Grab the mp3 below and head over to the label’s site to buy the vinyl, which is wrapped in some killer cover art.
Jonas & Francois, best known for last year’s stunning “D.A.N.C.E.” video, among others, lend their animation skills to bass heavy French electro-funk outfit Flairs. Handmade, using 3,000 sheets of paper, a simple printer-computer and scanner trio, and seven black ink pencils, the beautiful black and white video for Flairs’ “Better Than Prince” suits the track “like the best wedding possible.” Watch out A-ha, er, um, and you too Prince.
In the Bastille Mixtape that I posted on Monday, I included tracks from late 70s/early 80s underground French synth-wave acts Ruth and Marie Möör. Following up, I wanted to mention two excellent compilations from that time period, which do a great job of capturing the French electro/no-wave/synth-pop/punk movement and at the same time are easily obtained (unlike some of the artists they contain). As synth-based post punk was on the rise on the other side of the English Channel, with Human League’s single “Don’t You Want Me” beaming over the airwaves, a similar movement of futuristic robot eroticism took hold in France. This movement of synth-based cold-wave acts had prompted punk-musical journalist, Yves Adrien, to write a lengthy essay in 1980 titled, NovöVision, that conjured up a Zamyatin-type of dystopian society focused on drugs, robots, sex, and even robotic sex.
So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music (1977-1983) begins with the steady spacey synth pulses, atmospheric organs, and ethereal French-sung/spoken female vocals of Nini Raviolette’s “Suis-Je Normale.” Forgive me for the comparison, because the movie is fresh in my mind, but the track would have made the perfect accompaniment for a less “Hello Dolly” opening of Wall-E. A lonely robot rolls around a lifeless, abandoned, and eerily unfamiliar Earth set against the stark tone and icy synths of the somber song, while, in almost a robotic tone, female vocals ask “suis-je, suis-je normale? (am I, am I normal?)” The track pretty much sets the cold-wave tone for the rest of the comp which includes the austere robotic grooves of Ruth’s “Polaroid/Roman/Photo,” The Druids rare illustrated concept of “The Force,” and the cyberpunk of Artefact on “Mae.”
If So Young But So Cold was the first-course that aroused your appetite, then BIPPP: French Synth Wave (1979-85) is the gluttonous main course of obscure French synth-wave singles. Initially released by Parisian-imprint Born Bad in 2006, BIPPP was released in the States earlier this year via Everloving Records. Like their European counterparts, The Human League, Depeche Mode, Gary Newman, Soft Cell, and Kraftwerk, the artists compiled on BIPPP share the love of the analog synthesizer. A brief blurb on the album jacket gives an outline of the birth of French synth-wave, which gives credit to the rise of the genre to ex-Stinky Toy member Dennis Quillard (aka Janco) and singer Elli Mederios and their instrumental Kraftwerk-worshipping single “Rectangle.” Like So Young, BIPPP paints an icy-synth laden landscape that covers a six year span. Unlike the perfect pop that some UK artists were churning out, BIPP shows that the synth sounds remained more stripped in France at the time.
Over the past several years we’ve come to know Ed Banger as fine purveyors of dirty electro-infused dance tracks. The label has kept us energized into the wee hours of the morning freaking out to songs from Justice, SebastiAn, Uffie, DJ Mehdi, Mr Oizo, Vicarious Bliss, and label founder Busy P. However, with the Parisian imprint’s new signee, Mickey Moonlight, the label seems to be taking a new direction from the heavy dance vibe for which they’ve become renowned.
Mickey Moonlight, the UK producer/remixer also known as Midnight Mike (aka Mike Silver) is the newest addition to Ed Banger and from the very little I’ve heard, he already sounds like a breath of fresh air to the label. Silver’s interpretation of Sun Ra’s “Interplanetary Music” is catchy disco-pop ride through the outer fringes of the cosmos with layered female/male vocals glide over miniature twisting polyrhythms and a sturdy beat. The other two tracks I’ve heard from Silver are “Music For Responsible Reprogenetics” and “A Big Ship Passing,” which are much more drone-y, floating, and ambient than his current single.
Word is that an album is due out in the near future, but for now that’s all we have. Check out the video for “Interplanetary Music” below and keep your eyes on the stars.
This mixtape pulls together a collection of some of my favorite French music from the 1960s through today to celebrate Bastille Day. The French national holiday (which was celebrated in Philadelphia over the weekend at Eastern State Penitentary), commemorates the storming of the Bastille, which took place on July 14, 1789, marking the beginning of the French Revolution. The largest celebration of the holiday, which is like July 4th to us Americans, is in, you guessed it, New York City. To celebrate in a low-key style, grab yourself a nice bottle of Beaujolais, along with a Godard or Truffaut flick and download the mix below.
With the first wave of My Bloody Valentine reunion shows all wrapped up and a seemslikeforever gap until their North American debut at ATP New York, fans like myself away from the action are filling the void with questions like “when is the band going to release new material?” It seems, according to a recent article in the August issue of UK rag MOJO, that we’re not going to have to wait very long. Shit, we’ve already been waiting seventeen years, so what’s a couple more months or even a year?
After scooping up the MOJO Classic Album for 1991′s classic album Loveless in June, the magazine caught up with Kevin Shields who states:
We’ve an album that was half finished in the ’90s. As usual with me, basically there were periods of productivity, then nothing. We were wary that we were plodding. It seems like that from a distance but when you’re doing it it’s like a few great days then not really doing much for the rest of the week, or two weeks. We’re not doing any gigs in October-November. That’s when I’m going to try and finish it off, to be out by the end of the year in some fashion. At the moment it’s only got vocals on about two tracks. It’s mostly just guitars and the basic backing tracks.
Shields continues, dropping hints about what we can expect from the yet to be named mystery album:
It’s kind of a bit less poppy and more sort of expanded. More melodic but less poppy melodic… There’s no kind of hooky, dinky binks or anything. The main thing about it is the guitars and some of the drums are way heavier and tougher, way more kind of, ‘That’s interesting…’ A much more growling and screaming sort of sound.
Sweet. Seems ambitious to see this thing released by the end of the year, but, then again, I never really expected these reunion shows to happen after years of rumors.
Over the years, I’ve taken my fair share of late night train rides. Getting myself and whatever else I may have with me frantically to the station and aboard the train uses up the last of the day’s energy. Once onboard and situated, there’s nothing else to do except for sitting back and enjoying the ride. In my book, there’s not a more calming and relaxing way to travel. For the time being, stresses and “to-do’s” are tucked away in bags stuffed into the overhead compartments and the next day feels just out of reach. With heavy eyes, the car’s gentle rocking gradually seduces you into slumber as the train rumbles onward into the wee hours of the night. Gazing outside, fading in and out of consciousness, the landscape takes the form of abstract streams of light flowing past like bright colors of paint streaked on a black canvas. Multiple bobs of the head soon give way to a peaceful slumber, and at some moment you wake up, always at your designated destination. Briefly the thought of staying on board and letting the train take you wherever it goes swims in and out of your mind – but reality sets in and all those “to-do’s” tucked away neatly start to make their way back into your pockets. Luckily, there’s music that can have the same effect, that’s what this is, this is music for that late night train ride to nowhere.
