Zaz: Live in London

A London date tonight from Zaz, the singer whose latest album Paris could almost have been
designed to fulfill the musical requirements of the francophile music fan.

It's an easy and jazzy collection, every song  a cover of an old time number that praises Paris.

While still not a household name in the UK, she's been one of France's biggest sellers in recent years, and this album, her third, has continued to reinforce her reputation.

Yeserday saw her answering questions from fans at Facebook's London HQ. Her album's recently been released in the UK.

She's no stranger to playing in the UK, and was over in 2013 when she played the Scala as well as a low key session at the Institut Francais.

Zaz plays at Under The Bridge in Fulham tonight.

Maître Gims: Est-ce que tu m'aimes ?

A new video from Maître Gims, with the track Est-ce que tu m'aimes ? 


The track comes from Gims' forthcoming album MCAR, which is expected to be released in the autumn. The album, his second solo collection takes its title from an acronym of Mon cœur avait raison.

While best known for his role in  Sexion d'Assaut , Gims 2013 solo debut Subliminal was a massive seller, reaching number two in France and number one in other countries.

The album led to some massive singles, particularly the number one J'me tire, while the songs Bella and Zombie also reached the top three in the singles charts.

The new song sounds very approachable to an audience that normally wouldn't go for an urban track and sounds likely to open a the 2015 chapter in the Gims success story.

Gims plays at the Palais Omnisports De Paris Bercy on December 14 as part of his tour of arenas around France.

New Acts - ATOM: Extraction (Pad session)

A strong piece of work by ATOM with a live session of the track Extraction, a number that appears
on the bands four track EP Extractor.

The EP was released in December last year, the new session version emerged at the end of last month.

The Bordeaux based four piece band credit acts like Editors, Joy Division,  Radiohead  and Interpol as influences.  You can hear something of each of these bands in what they do, but there's more at work here than borrowing from some of the best.

What they've come up with is an inspiring sound, rooted in a rugged post-punk soundscape but unafraid to turn things up to epic level.

AaRON: Blouson Noir

A new track - Blouson Noir - by AaRON.

AaRON is a duo of Simon Buret and Olivier Coursier and the track comes ahead of the release of a new album, due later this year.

AaRON relased their debut album Artificial Animals Riding on Neverland in 2007, the track U-Turn (Lili) reacing the top 20 in France. The album reached number one, as did its follow up, 2010's Birds in the Storm.

Their track U-Turn (Lili) was used in the soundtrack of the French film Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas, the 2006 movie winning two César awards.

AaRON's new track features an interesting franglais lyric, but it's a sombre and dark piece of electro-backed songwriting.  If there's a new Ryan Gosling movie in search of a piece of music to illustrate motorcycle emptiness existentialism, this could be it.

The lyrics video doesn't prevent repeated listening to the song. Hopefully the album will be of a similar quality.

They have live dates at the end of May and a couple of festival shows confirmed over the summer with a gig at the Montreux Jazz Festival in July and the Brussels Summer Festival in August.

AaRON release the album We Cut The Night in September.

Rone: Quitter la Ville - Blogothèque session

A magnificent new Blogothèque session video for Rone's track  Quitter la Ville.

It was filmed at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, continuing the tradition their take away show of Blogothèque videos taking music to interesting locations.

Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle couldn't be a more appropriate setting for the song. A well-known location, yet a place that also a very strange . A place people pass through but rarely stay any time at. A place that exists between two locations, both familiar and unsettling.

The original video for Quitter La Ville was a striking one, this visual representation of the track is  every bit as powerful. The cinematography here is outstanding.

The session features the vocals of François Marry from François and the Atlas Mountains, in a very different context from his usual musical framework.

New Acts: The Slaughterhouse Brothers - Hometown Boys.

An act that came to my attention thanks to the French Music Podcast UK Facebook page, the Slaughterhouse Brothers are a nimble act this track displaying with a funky take on post rock.

They are a four piece from Caen in Normandy, who began working together in 2012 rehearsing in a former slaughterhouse.

They released an album entitled Hometown Boys in November last year.

The album is well worth a listen, on their Bandcamp page

You'll find a sharp and energetic collection, and get the strong impression that they'd be a great band to see live.

An EP, also entitled  Hometown Boys, is due to be released later this month.

Editorial: May 2015

Another busy month at Vive le Roq, a healthy number of posts despite the Easter break and an
equally healthy number of visitors to the site.

Record Store Day  / Disquaire Day saw some interesting releases , and the appearance of new material by Jean Michel Jarre was obviously seen as a major event by his many fans.

Meanwhile, some new acts that we featured on the site attracted a huge number of visitors.
There will be more of these this month, and some interesting features are in the pipeline as well.

There are a huge number of French acts playing in the UK this month, from prog giants Magma in Manchester and London, to more underground acts et the Great Escape festival in Brighton and at the Sound City event in Liverpool.

Meanwhile, there will be final names being added to festival bills, as the summer events begin to get underway. last months le Printemps de Bourges event marking the start of the 2015 summer season.

I've been getting involved when time allows with the French Music Podcast page on Facebook, so give it a like if you want a serving of French music videos in your timeline. You'll get plenty of listening suggestions from the team in your timeline.

As always, I can be contacted on johnkilbrideAThotmailDOTcom, with the appropriate punctuation where you'd expect it to be.

I'm always pleased to hear from record companies, PR companies and promoters, so do get in touch.
We're also on Twitter as @viveleroq or you can find me at @karnag

Thanks as always  to the good people at the French Music Office in London and to the Institut francais in London for their help and encouragement.

Merci et à bientôt

John K