Festival: French acts at SXSW, Austin Texas

With the SXSW festival getting under way in Austin Texas, some fine French acts are carrying the standard.

Bureauexport has an event- France Rocks Austin 2012- at the festival, presenting some of France's finest to an influential crowd.

SXSW has increasingly become a key event in the US music market, particularly for foreign acts aiming to establish a reputation in America.

Featuring at the France Rocks Austin 2012 event are The Octopus Project, College, Housee de Racket, Anoraak, Yan Wagner, Rodrigues, Hindi Zahra, Doldrums, the Two and Gush.

Yelle are also at the event with a DJ set.

Other French acts like Yuksek are playing other events during the course of the event.

An interesting set of acts, some very well known in France and others less so, all getting a chance to get better known across the water.

BureauExport has made a dowloadable sampler available, featuring tracks by Hindi Zahra, Yuksek, Yelle and others, so that even if you can't get to the event, you can still check out some of France's finest new sounds.

It's available to download from this page> http://www.francerocks.net/austin2012/sampler/

Live: Team Ghost and Anoraak - Oui Love tour

A reminder that the Oui Love tour gets under way this weekend, with French bands Team Ghost and Anoraak playing some dates across the UK.

Last month's Record Store Day saw the release of a split single by Team Ghost and Anoraak on the Sonic Cathedral label, with each band remixing the other's work.

More details here > http://viveleroq.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-record-store-day-team-ghost.html

Team Ghost have finished recording their debut album in France and Anoraak's Wherever the Sun Sets album is available now on Grand Blanc records.

The tour dates are:

Saturday, May 14 - Brighton - The Great Escape
Monday, May 16 - Bristol - Louisiana
Tuesday, May 17 - Birmingham - Hare & Hounds
Wednesday, May 18 - Manchester - The Castle
Thursday, May 19 - Liverpool - Liverpool Sound City
Friday, May 20 - London - CAMP Basement

New: Record Store Day - Team Ghost

This weekend's Record Store Day saw a couple of French acts releases a split single, Team Ghost and Anoraak, with each band remixing the other's work.

The single was a limited release of just 250 copies on blue vinyl, and if you managed to get one you were luckier than I was!

Team Ghost was formed by Nicolas Fromageau, originally in the duo M83, who released two albums, M83 (2002) and Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts (2003), before Fromageau left the band.

Relocating to Paris, he teamed up with Christophe Guérin and producer/manager Jean-Philippe Talaga and began working as Team Ghost.

They released their debut EP You Never Did Anything Wrong to Me on the UK label Sonic Cathedral in April 2010, a second EP Celebrate what You Can't See released in November 2010.

Team Ghost has just started work on their debut album, recording it in Carpentras in Vaucluse, in south east France.

The band are being brought over to the UK for the Oui Love Tour to play some dates co-headlining with Anoraak.

Sat 14/05 Brighton, The Great Escape
Mon 16/05 Bristol, The Louisiana
Tues 17/05 Birmingham, Hare and Hounds
Wed 18/05 Manchester, The Castle
Thu 19/05 Liverpool, Liverpool Sound City
Fri 20/05 London, CAMP

News: Record Store Day - Charlotte Gainsbourg

Saturday April 16 is International Record Store Day, where in an effort to encourage you to shop in your local independent record shop there are a whole host of special limited edition goodies up for sale.

With decent record shops becoming very much an endangered species, it's a welcome and worthy endeavour, and well worth supporting.

It originally started in the US in 2007, and has since spread internationally to both the UK and France. The UK sees 180 shops involved, and over 250 special releases marking the day.

This year there are some french acts involved in the special releases being made available in the UK.

Probably the most interesting is a special seven inch by Charlotte Gainsbourg, a split release with Irish band Villagers. The Charlotte Gainsbourg track is one called Memoir, written by Conor O'Brien from Villagers after Charlotte approached him to write a song for her to perform.

They recorded the song together in Paris with Feist producer Renaud Letang.

It comes two years after her Beck produced album IRM, and ahead of the planned release later this year of a compilation called Live and Unreleased, a double album which will include Memoir.

Also for Record store day is a limited release (250 copies on a blue vinyl seven inch single on Sonic cathedral Recordings) by Anoraak and Team Ghost where each act remixes each other's track ( Dolphins & Highways / A Glorious Time) to mark their Oui Love tour of the UK.

Meanwhile, Ed Banger Records releases a limited box set of 7 inch vinyl, featuring a demo version of Justice's Civilisation.

For more information on Record Store Day in the UK, go here >