Bob Sinclar: Paris by Night

A new release by DJ and producer Bob Sinclar, Paris by Night appears today.

There's no track being promoted as a single so far from the collection, described as a Parisian Musical Experience selected and Mixed by Bob Sinclar.

It seems a low key release, following his January 2012 collection Disco Crash which saw a raft of singles such as Me Not A Gansta (feat Colonet Reyel), Rock The Boat (feat Pitbull) and F- With You (feat Sophie Ellis Bextor).

The fact that none of these were hits might explans why the new release is being released without much hype, perhaps to allow the album to find its market and quietly re-establish Sinclar as a respected name before giving his career a bigger promotion.

For all his earlier hits, he's got a way to go before he reaches the levels of success of David Guetta or even Martin Solveig have enjoyed in recent years.

Sinclar appeared in Solveig's video for the track Hello, where the two DJs faced each other across a tennis court.

Hopefully the new collection will go some way to improve Sinclar's world ranking.

A teaser for the track Summer Moonlight has appeared on YouTube

Editorial: April 2013

A quick editorial for this month, with Easter holidays meaning that this was pre-written in advance and scheduled to appear while I'm elsewhere.

Last month saw the site mark its third anniversary, and since that hesitant start in 2010 there's been a huge change in how much has appeared on the site, as well as how many visitors have been.

In simple terms, I had more posts last month than I did in the whole of 2010.

Incidentally, March also saw a couple of other milestones passed on the site, with over 50,000 pageviews and over 500 posts. While not likely to challenge any of the big sites that are out there on the internet, and given that for its first year the site was not far off dormant, I'm pleased with the success its had.

Anyway, no time for nostalgia or looking back. More new releases scheduled this month, from Carla Bruni's new album out today to Disquaire Day/Record Store Day at the end of the month, more great things to listen to and write about.

As always, I can be contacted by email at the address johnkilbride AT hotmail DOT com, with the spaces and the appropriate @ and . in the address, or on twitter where you can find us @viveleroq

Merci et à bientôt

jk

Woodkid: The Golden Age

With the release of the Woodkid album the Golden Age earlier this week, I thought it time to look at what has already been to these ears at least one of the albums of the year.

It's the debut album by the artist known to his family as Yoann Lemoine,and while the three singles he's released so far, I Love You, Iron and Run Boy Run may not have been huge hits (yet) , they were heaped with the kind of critical praise and
respect reserved for only very special artists indeed.

The album takes us further into his world, with the epic musical backgrounds contrasting with the subtle and almost vulnerable voice.

For all his day job involves him making music videos, for the likes of Yelle, lana Del Ray, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, never mind his own which earned him a Grammy nomination, it looks like it will be a while until he's pursuing anyone else's artistic vision given the strength of this release.

For all the album sounds like the kind of work that's come about as a result of intense work in the studio, he's got an impressive schedule of live dates ahead, in France, mainland Europe and the UK and Ireland, the tour ending at the Zénith in Paris in November

I expect we'll be hearing a great deal more about Woodkid in the near future.

Justice: Access all Arenas

Great to hear news that Justice are to release a live album entitles Access all Arenas, recorded on their international tour that they undertook last year on the back of 2011's Audio, Video, Disco album.

The album was one of my favourites, taking dance music into the realm of rock, and vice versa and coming up with something entirely new altogether.

It's their second live collection, following 2008's A Cross the Universe album.

Justice established themselves as a strong live act, perhaps more so than any operating in the electronic/dance genre.

The live album was recorded at their gig in July last year at the the arena in Nîmes, a Roman amphitheatre that's been holding shows since around 70AD, hosting everything from gladiators to bullfights, recently the venue where Metallica's Français Pour Une Nuit and Rammstein's Volkerball live DVDs were recorded.

Access all Arenas is released on May 6.

M83: Oblivion

M83's title track to the new Tom Cruise film Oblivion has appeared online.

The track Oblivion features vocals by Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør.

Given Anthony Gonzalez's apparent like for the more cosmic things (the band is names after a galaxy after all) involvement in the soundtrack of a science fiction film seems an obvious move.

Gonzales composed the score with Joseph Trapanese, who arranged five tracks on M83's Hurry Up I'm Dreaming album, and worked with Daft Punk on the Tron: Legacy soundtrack.

The track StarWaves - a slow instrumental - from the film soundtrack emerged earlier.

The film is based on a graphic novel by the same name, which was written by Joseph Kosinski, who made his film directorial debut with Tron: Legacy, a film that also memorably featured a French band's soundtrack.

2011's Hurry Up We're Dreaming gave M83 their biggest commercial hit, and a film soundtrack seems a good move in that it allows them to build on the success of that release without the weight of expectations of a new album. Although a soundtrack for a $100m movie is hardly a low key release.

That being said, the song - complete with its 80s influences - could easily be imagined as a massive hit single along the lines of songs like Show Me Heaven by Maria McKee from Days of Thunder or Take My Breath Away by Berlin on Top Gun.

Of course, those with longer memories recall Tangerine Dream, a European electronic act with a cosmic attitude, doing the soundt
rack for Risky Business, an early hit for Tom Cruise.

Whether or not Tom Cruise remains the big draw at the box office that he was in the 80s remains to be seen, but there's no denying the soundtrack certainly deserves top billing.

The film Oblivion is released on April the tenth.

Lou Doillon: Defiant

A video's come out for another track from the Lou Doillon album Places.

This time its the song Defiant that gets the big screen treatment.

The album, the debut collection from the daughter of Jane Birkin and Jacques Doillon, has been a huge hit in France since it was released in September. It has already been in the top three in the album charts and has been a platinum seller, with the tracks Angel or devil and ICU having been previously promoted as singles.

The former actress and model went on to win the Best Female Artist award in the Victoires de la Musique awards in February.

The new video follows the clip for Angel or Devil, which was filmed in Scotland. This one is more upbeat and has a more retro pop style with nicely shot live footage.

Lou Doillon is on  tour in in France at the moment, and plays festival dates over the summer

The album Places gets a UK release on April 22.

Phoenix "Entertainment" covered by Dinosaur Jr

With the Phoenix album Bankrupt! competing with the Daft Punk new release for the title of 2013's most anticipated French album release, their single Entertainment has been given a new twist with a cover by US indie rock legends Dinosaur Jr.

It certainly takes the Phoenix song somewhere it's not been before and makes it something very different to what it was originally.

The Phoenix album is due to be released on April 22, the day the band play a date in London.

The album will also be released as a deluxe version which includes 'The Bankrupt! Diaries', 71 bonus tracks of work-in-progress recordings made as the band recorded the album.

The tracks, many of them around a minute long, are demos and sketches that the band recorded during the album sessions. The tracks Aristotle and Aristotelian last just one second. The extra material clocks in at around an hour in total.

There are, sadly, no Dinosaur Jr covers done in Phoenix style.

Thomas Mars from Phoenix said:  "My brother David took me to see Dinosaur Jr. live in Paris around the time when Green Mind was released.

"I have been a fan since then" , he added.

Extensive live dates have been confirmed surrounding the Phoenix album release, with festival dates over the summer in Europe preceded by dates in North America.