Editorial: June 2014

We're fully into summer now, and hopefully enjoying some warmer weather and some cool sounds.

Last month was a busy one on the blog, with not only some great releases to cover, but some very encouraging visitor figures. Merci to everyone who has visited over the past few weeks, hope you like what you found and hopefully see you again.

It was our second busiest ever month for visitors, pipped only by the number of visitors we had in February. It's hugely encouraging to see the number of visits growing in recent months.

June of course sees festival season come into full swing, with events across France throughout the summer. Hopefully I can get some of the flavour of these on this blog.

There were some spectacular releases last month, including those by We Were Evergreen and Yann Tiersen, and hopefully this month will see a few more interesting items coming onto the shelves.

No glory for France at the Eurovision Song Contest in May though, in fact their worst showing ever with only two points and last place for Twin Twin with moustache. I've always thought of Eurovision as a strange parallel universe for music, so no real worries there. It was an entertaining night's telly, and it's always worth remembering that France's greatest victory in Eurovision with France Gall and Serge Gainsbourg was actually for Luxembourg...

This month the results of the European elections showed France in a bad light. But the France I love isn't 25% racist and ignorant, and good people will be doing work to highlight that. Meanwhile, artists will be producing work that brings people together, regardless of whatever artificially created boundaries opportunistic politicians point to. Long may this continue.

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

We're also on Twitter as @viveleroq or you can find me at @karnag

Thanks again to the French Music Office in London and to the Institut francais in London for their help and encouragement  and also to the various record companies and promoters who have been in touch with suggestions for inclusion on the site.

Merci et à bientôt

John K