French rock groups

of course METAIL URBAIN but also

DR MIX AND REMIX

sortilege - cracking '80s french metal

There were quite a few good French prog bands in various styles. Ange, Semool, Moving Gelatine Plates (who have their story told in the most recent Record collector BTW), Couer magique , Horrific Child, Chico magnetic band, Sandrose

There's also the folk into rock stuff like Malicorne and Alain Stivell though that's more electrified folk.

& I did enjoy Deity Guns in the early 90s. At least live where they looked pretty symmetrical on the stage cos about half of them were left handed players.

Airwave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-zDzA5wZg

Oh yeah meant say The dragons who apparently weren't a chinese punk rock group whose music was smuggled out of Red china by a french journalist but a hoax put together by the journalist and some fop his friends.
Anyway great Crampsy rumbles with one string viol asa lead instrument.
Really wish I hadn't lost their Parfums De la revolution when I left Dublin. Had been looking for a copy for years before i found it in a shop there.

Is there a French-language PJ Harvey?

A French-language Breeders?

Help, j'ai besoin de ecouter de musique francaise mais so much est n'est pas to my liking.

They sound neither like PJ Harvey nor like the Breeders, but have you tried Feu! Chatterton?

Will try now. Had no idea where to start but I am on to and enjoying La Femme!Thread delivers.

My mistake was listening to "learn French through French Music" playlists on Spotifying and thinking oh fuck no I don't even want to know French anymore :(

PS I really want to learn French.

OK Feu! Cahtterton is right up my alley. Plus, s'il vous plait!

Not a 'group' per se, but I can't believe no one in this thread mentioned Alain Bashung.

Play Blessures is a total classic

Thanks to this thread I am in a 100% better place wrt French music, thanking u. Keep 'em coming, merci.

quincie have you heard Lescop? he's got a new album out. not as keen on it as the one he did before but he does a great post-punk sound

Got a CD by a band called Soggy, who put out one single in 1980/81 - everything else on the disc is previously unreleased stuff. It's basic Stooges/MC5 garage punk, shirtless and shouty (they even covered "I Wanna Be Your Dog" fairly capably), recommended if you like that sort of thing.

Here's a video for their best known song, "Waiting for the War":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XPsyWDEkw

Appropriately enough it looks like someone stuck Rob Tyner's head on Iggy's body.

That Soggy video is great! Fantastic guitar sound.

I really like the 2000s French punk band La Fraction. Female-fronted and super catchy without being pop-punk, exactly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YexH60U0Rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqAmPFA7-eg

Not a band neither but Brigitte Fontaine is probably the closest French singer to PJ Harvey.

Couldn't resist:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD8Dnh2xho

That Trust cover art is good fodder for the "one band member refuses to play along" thread.

Not en francias, and not even particularly representative of the band, but song has always felt like a precursor to PJ Harvey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBNEJX6GC20

Has anybody mentioned
Deity Guns
Batarde
Rotomagus
Chico's Magnetic Band

the early 70s prog scene
Ange
Alice
etc etc

or the new volume of Souljazz's Punk 45 which is why I assumed this thread had been revived

The Arachnoïd s/t is imperative for all fans of unusual rock music. Opening track is a stunner

I seem to recall seeing something on an Orange Goblin tour feed where the lead singer for Soggy might have joined them or met them at a gig last year. It was the first time I had heard of Soggy.

xp You're not wrong! Somehow I've never heard this before

stevolende: you did, two years ago! :)

the punk 45 comp was interesting. got me to check out the dogs and guilty razors... as well as a 3 dans les wc, which may have been mentioned here? they're fairly well known. the thing was, i wasn't as much into it as i was into some of the french stuff on the "fake punk" comp "je suis punk". seriously, one listen to pas vraiment mechant by sexe a pile and you can fuck your authenticity narratives.

Shakin' Street made two pretty kick-ass albums. Though their singer was a woman, so she probably didn't sing about women or maybe she did.
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, April 9, 2003 11:55 PM (fourteen years ago)
She did sing about Susie Wong which was the title of a great single from their s/t first album and up to two days ago the only Shakin' Street song I'd ever heard (tho' I may have played the B-side once or twice).

Two days ago was idly flipping through the CDs in Kensington library and finding said first album. Bit of a Wow! moment; never expected to see that again.

I have been listing to French rock for like three days now, why don't I understand French yet?

You need to turn it up louder, my friend.

BTWxxxp there's a Kas Product comp on Soul Jazz but I think all of the tracks on it were issued relatively recently as bonus tracks on the reissues of their first two albums.

http://www.progarchives.com/french-progressive-rock-scene.asp

ugh that was hard to read. i'm listening to the last album by manu booz right now, though, and it's some pretty nice prog; slightly too much shredding for my taste, but some good writing too. reminds me a little bit of arrigo barnabe.

That article doesn't even mention Arachnoid! I despair

also omits art zoyd, moving gelatine plates, eskaton, weidorje, sandrose, pentacle, memoriance...

Currently loving Jacques Dutronc, La Femme, Lescop, Les Limiñanas.

Magma's Live is being reissued with bonus tracks.

that's cool but they're the same bonus tracks that have been on the cds since seventh first issued them in '89 :)

https://www.discogs.com/Aquaserge-Laisse-%C3%87a-%C3%8Atre/master/1129921

happy bastille day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XNpsjpOI8A

\m/

Happy Bastille Day mf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQkku7jLfo

Here's a great, ear-opening article about the French underground:

https://thequietus.com/articles/26936-french-underground-music-1970s

Any good compilations covering this era? Seems ripe for Soul Jazz to do something similar to their stellar krautrock samplers.

There was a post recently about a compilatiom based on the NWW list which was all French music from that era. Check the NWW List thread.

As I said on that thread, I spent some time a few years ago listening to a lot of avant garde French rock from that era and though there's a lot of great stuff, I don't think there's as much of it as there was in Germany at the same time.

That's an interesting article, but I've tried to get into Magma at least a half dozen times and they suuuuuck. And the Pinhas/Heldon albums I've heard (old stuff as well as recent music, including collaborations with Merzbow and other folks) are just weirdly static and bland.

Yeah Iceland is the only Pinhaus thing I’ve dug

It’s pretty “static” though

The new Feu ! Chatterton furthers cements their status as the Radiohead de la nouvelle chanson française.

Presumably they sing in French!

They do, they do, and Arthur Teboul is an especially fine lyricist.

Hauts, hauts garcons

I do miss the more overt rawk stylings of their debut, though. They struck just the right balance on that one.