Text: Nick Forrester
Photo: Four Tet
Hot Chip visited Paris earlier this month to showcase their new album but for the many that missed out there is still plenty on the agenda before April. Mr Scruff, Manchester DJ, will be providing a jazzy breaks night of dancing tomorrow night and the DJ collective based in Paris and New York, Animal House, are playing tonight, Friday 19th March. Next week sees Kieron Hebden aka Four Tet return to Paris, on tour following the release of his 7th album There is Love in You, which signaled a return to form for many critics.
If two experimental sets from English DJ virtuosos in two weeks sounds is a bit like hard work then it could be worth popping out to see old favorites the Cranberries or French indie stars Phoenix. Alternatively, mid-week we have Why or
the Hidden Cameras who’s album
Original: Orphan came out last year with some more quality videos. If one is in search of the best of French music, in the past one had to look no further than French electro. Though there is no chance to see the likes of Air or Justice as yet, French DJ Yuksek, who released his first full album
Away from the Sea in 2024, will be playing at l’Alhambra on the 30th.
There is now plenty of French indie-rock floating around,
Les Shades, who even sing in French, are playing at Nouveau Casino on the 30th. Favorites Skip the Use and Pony Pony Run Run don’t quite manage this – but both have excellent collections of oh-so-fashionable indie (synth-pop) playing in the upcoming months. Also shuffling into this group are Belgian based Puggy who are playing at Point Ephémère on the 31st.
More on: VINGT March Gig Guide
Text: Nick Forrester
Image: Frédéric Chopin by Eugène Delacroix
To celebrate the bicentenary of Chopin's birth the Musée de la vie Romantique is presenting an important exhibition and homage to the composer. The museum, formerly Ary Scheffer’s Villa, was frequented by Chopin, who was Scheffer’s friend and neighbor during his time in Paris between 1831 and 1848.
The exhibition, dedicated to these Parisian years, links together literature, painting, music and a range of correspondences between Chopin’s circle of "Nouvelles Athenes" artists. There is a wide variety of interesting paintings and sketches including Delacroix’s portrait of Chopin and Eugene Lami’s depictions of social gatherings and concerts, attended by a fantastic array of artists.
More on: Chopin at Musée de la Vie Romantique
Text: Brendan Seibel
Girl groups from the swinging 60's were a dime a dozen. Record labels paired songwriters with producers, handpicked the voices, and stylists went to work creating a palatable package ready for eager consumers. Parisian starlets The Plastiscines may not have been assembled by executives, but their rise in popularity comes from modern mechanisms pioneered decades ago. A group of middle class teens who could double as models, the band was guaranteed attention from their first struggling chords. Nylon Magazine launched a record label to release the debut album, grooming their flagship act for the media blitz to come. First France, then Europe and finally the States were invaded, The Plastiscines appearance on TV demographic hot-spot Gossip Girls as profound a victory as D-Day.
More on: The Plastiscines at La Maroquinerie
Text: Brendain Seibel
When Jeanne Cherhal burst onto the music scene a decade ago she had already perfected enfant terrible persona. Embodying the middle class, parochial ideal her unhinged presence behind the keys must have shocked early audiences, exacting an unattributed revenge through musical tantrums. Her debut album, a live recording, perfectly revealed the intelligence and passion of a young prodigy, skillfully playing her admirers for laughs and applause.
By the release of her first studio album Cherhal had either tired of being packaged as a precocious cabaret brat or was dragged into the corporate image machine. Backed by a band and relying on light pop-rock structures the Nantes artist seemed consumed with distancing herself from the prancing pianist who had formerly inhabited her skin. Tongue-twisting, breathless rants percolated from time to time, but deft artistry was buried in radio-friendly ditties. Sophisticated jazz licks across the ivories could not save her from makeovers and press junkets. The only signs of life slumbering beneath the klieg lights and powder were live appearances where, although playing stripped down renditions of her pop-tart flirtations, a little fire remained burning.
More on: Jeanne Cherhal at Bataclan
Text: Brendan Seibel
Skinny tie pop-rock was but one highly visible 80's revivalist movement to grace stages in the past decade. As fads fade faster than cotton candy in your mouth the landscape has shifted towards another throwback, replacing guitars with keyboards and collared shirts with day-glo.
Alsatian quartet Colt Silvers rotted their baby teeth on the confectionary delights of Duran Duran and Modern English. Riding the release of their Deaf Rock Records debut Night of the Living Robots, this Strasbourg group are making a pitstop at l'International. Fusing the alienating cool of electronic melodies with house beats and a high energy presence they've been perfecting their brand of accessible sugary music for the past several years.
More on: Colt Silvers & Modern Folks at l'International
Text: Brendan Seibel
Spitfire reggaeton lyrics and hip-hop beats may seem fiercely modern for the Institut du Monde Arabe, but Amazigh Kateb is a cultural warrior. His fusion of musical styles incorporates the traditional melodies of the Maghreb, African roots and European sensibilities to create a defiantly global sound. His uncompromising passion for his Berber lineage, his love of pan-African community and his anger towards Algerian politics earn him a place amongst more stoic scholars.
Son of a famous author, Kateb fled his homeland at the age of sixteen as political turmoil reached a boiling point. Living in Grenoble he founded Gnawa Diffusion, a group which became popular not only throughout France and Northern Africa, but the Middle East. Staunchly political songs railing against the government of Algeria balanced with uplifting numbers urging self-reliance and determination.
More on: Amazigh Kateb at the Institut du Monde Arabe
Text: Brendan Seibel
Parisians Faren Khan claim to have taken their name from a legendary bandit who roamed the eastern mountains astride a great swine. Legends may have no grounding in reality but this group trades in mythos, creating a soundtrack for their rouge hero. It will be an evening of mixed cultures and tall tales at New Morning, a brief journey through lands forgotten by both time and history.
Two Frenchmen, one alternating between saxophone and melodica, the other surrounded by an anthropologist's collection of drums, a Spaniard with a banjo and an American singer who plays violin. The scope of Faren Khan's music stretches further yet, plucking fables from the dark forests of Eastern Europe, the bustling cities of the subcontinent, and the courtyards of North Africa. These vagabonds roam the world, hopping trains or stowing away on ships, playing the cafes of Cairo and the bazaars of Delhi. The Klezmer of the saxophone melts into a lure for bellydancers, the rural folk of the banjo coaxes a weary but innocent falsetto from the violinist. It is the sound of a place where carpets fly, snakes dance and the scourge of the land rides a pig.
More on: Night of Cultures and Tales at New Morning
Text: Brendan Seibel
Photo: NRMAL StudioIf it was the 60's
King Khan & BBQ Show would be ripping up the local frats, twisting and shouting themselves hoarse. They live to entertain, hitting the club and party circuit with wild abandon from Montreal to Berlin, across the dusty stretched of America and criss-crossing Europe. Next stop,
Point Ephémère.
Trash rock is their scene, from the glory days of Spaceshits to the world of one off projects and solo acts. Steeped in the adrenal garage culture that drags the two-chord rants of The Seeds into the modern age, their twin guitar and kick-drum attack practices an art as old as the electric guitar. It's all guts, primal howls and flailing limbs. But adorned in the leftovers of a drag queen's eviction party.
More on: King Khan & BBQ Show at Point Ephémère
Text: Brendan Seibel
Celebrating a divergent scene, Point Ephémère is hosting A Psychedelic Night. Shedding any notion of acid-washed flower-power, the four groups commit an overloaded electric rampage over the corpses of their 60's influences. Tonight confronts the world with a new, abrasive mind-melt for the modern age.
Headliners
Kill for Total Peace meld over-driven guitars with touches of Madchester melody to offset a malicious militant dirge. Their unrelenting mechanized rhythms produce a state of absolute sensorial depravation, the mental fog pierced only by bursts of agonized feedback. Guided through this bleak industrial wasteland by detached narration there is no solace or camaraderie, only the impulse to submit to obliteration.
More on: A Psychedelic Night at Point Ephémère
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