A quite wonderful clip of the mighty Feu! Chatterton doing their thing live at the studio of France Inter.
While it's in a more controlled situation than a regular live show, it allows a closeness and a quality of the video production that are often missed when a full-scale live event is being captured. There's an argument that you'll never really capture an act's live experience on the small screen, as a million low-quality audience videos will testify. Perhaps this kind of session is an ideal compromise, allowing the intimacy of a close-up performance and the quality of a studio production.
I make no apology for thinking Feu! Chatterton are one of the best things to have come out of France musically in recent years. Their releases have been consistently high-quality affairs, literate, witty and intelligent, but somehow without taking themselves too seriously. They walk a fine line and do so with style.
It's ten years now since the release of their debut Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli) and their 2025 album Labyrinthe is every bit as essential as that first album was.
The clip comes from a performance in October 2025. It's worth tracking down all the other clips, including Allons Voir and L'affiche Rouge. A recent version of Mille Vagues is also available.
They're on tour across France's arenas this year from the end of this month, including two sold-out shows in Paris in February and sets at what seem like most of the country's summer festivals.
The first of three sold-out nights at the Olympia in Paris gets underway tonight for the mightly Feu!
Chatterton, marking the end of their tour promoting their Palais d'argile album.
While Palais d'argile is the band's third album, last month saw the release of the double album Live à Paris 2022, recorded at the Zénith de Paris on April 14 last year.
There's a ten-track double vinyl release, a limited edition four-disc vinyl version of the collection which expands it to 18 tracks, all these tracks included on the double CD version.
There are tracks from their previous three albums, from their remarkable 2015 debut Ici le jour (a tout enseveli) like Côte Concorde, Boeing and La Malinche, some from 2018's L'Oiseleur including Souvenir and Sari D'Orcino, but material from Palais d'argile obviously dominates, which is frankly no bad thing given that the album is one of the best releases in recent years.
Among the tracks is a previously unreleased version of L'Affiche Rouge, a song originally by Léo Ferré based on a text by surrealist poet Louis Aragon.
It's been astonishing to see Feu! Chatterton's rise, fulfilling the promise of their early work. A band who have always been articulate yet approachable, grounded in the traditions of French chanson but unafraid to take things in a new modern direction.
Feu! Chatterton are an extraordinary band who have enjoyed an extraordinary 12 months. The Palais d'argile tour may be coming to an end, but hopefully, we can look forward to more activity in 2023.
It's no secret that we're fans of Feu! Chatterton here, so it was an absolute pleasure to come across the clip of them performing live on the Le Double Expresso show on RTL2 on January 6.
It's a slightly stripped down version of the band and of the song, it's also very funny to see.
There's more available in audio on the show's website, including a live-in-the-studio version of La Malinche.
Inevitably we'll have more about Feu! Chatterton on the site here before too long, but that's no bad thing.
It's no secret that at this blog we're huge fans of Feu! Chatterton, and have been since their debut album came our way.
They embody much of what I love about French music, the idiosyncrasies, the way they don't take themselves too seriously but remain unashamedly intelligent and their style which manages to be simultaneously mock pretentious and completely natural.
So their third album Palais D'Argile is something we're pretty excited about, and while waiting for it to drop we were delighted to see this appear.
While an acoustic session, it's a magnificent piece of work. It's also so perfectly shot it's only after a few watched that you realise it's just one shot for the duration of the song.
The song is originally by Irish poet William Butler Yeats, it's English title being Before the world was made. It's recently been recorded by Carla Bruni - on her No Promises album from 2007 - and The Waterboys on their 2011 An Appointment with Mr Yeats album.
We've been waiting for something new from Feu! Chatterton for a while. It's not that they've been away for long, just we've been impatient.
With good reason. Their two albums, 2015's Ici le jour (a tout enseveli) and 2018's L'Oiseleur are among our faviourites in recent years, each a heady mix. Rooted in French poetic lyricism, but inhabiting a jazz-informed indie rock landscape that few others dare venture into without falling face first into the swamp of pretentiousness or tumbling into the chasm of joyless self-indulgence.
Yes, it's a bit arty, but they walks that fine line with a swagger and don't take themselves too seriously. It's hard to imagine a band like this from any other country.
If anything makes us hopefuly for 2021, its that fine bands like this have started to re-emerge from isolation and hibernation. The world might be new, different and unfamiliar, but it's been waiting for them to make it a little bit better.
As the lockdown lifts gradually in France, with shops beginning to open and movement restrictions loosened, some great material recorded under the confinement continues to emerge.
Here's a great new track from Feu! Chatterton which appeared on their Facebook page at the end of May, a cover of Mon nom, originally by Rodrigo Amarante. It featured originally on Amarante's 2013 Cavalo solo album. Amarante, a member of Brazilian band Los Hermanos as well as Little Joy, a band also featuring Fabrizio Moretti from The Strokes.
Feu! Chatterton's most recent release was last year's Feu! Chatterton Live 2018 EP, released as part of last year's Disquaire Day event. The five-track release was recorded on their live dates promoting the L'Oiseleur album, a collection that was nominated in the Best Rock Album category in the Victoires de la Musique 2019 awards.
Singer Arthur Teboul featured on Christophe's final album, Christophe, Etc. Vol. 2 - released in December last year - on a re-recorded duet of Le Beau Bizarre.
Feu! Chatterton's plans for a run of eight sold-out live dates at the Bouffes du Nord theatre in Paris in March and April were cancelled.
It won't be long until things are back to normal, and hopefully more new material from Feu! Chatterton and more live dates will be confirmed before too long.
I always enjoy drawing attention to the music festivals that are held in France, and while the overwhelming majority take place over the summer, with something worthwhile on pretty much every weekend, it's good to see things don't dry up completely as Autumn takes hold.
This year's Festi'Val de Marne runs from today until October 20, and sees an impressive number of acts performing across 24 town in the department in the Île-de-France.
Acts performing include Grand Corps Malade, Miossec and the mighty Feu! Chatterton. Elsewhere, Les Néhgresses Vertes, Pomme and Aquaserge are on the bill, as are Cats on Trees and Hollydays. There's a wide range of styles on display, with local communities getting the chance to experience some well-chosen developiong and estabished acts.
Other events include special shows for youngsters, including one intriguingly entitled Gainsbourg for kids.
With the venues of the Val de Marne easily accessible from Paris, it's no surprise that the festival has had a long history. With the theme 'Where the music embraces the words', this year marks the 32nd time the event's been held.
After being away from things for a few weeks, it's good to catch up with Feu! Chatterton, one of my favourite contemporary French acts.
The band recently released their second album, the follow up to Ici le jour (a tout enseveli) - a favourite of this blog - and marked the occasion with a new video for the track L'oiseau, featuring a 70s retro flavour that sees frontman Arthur plagued by a voodoo doll.
They've been playing live across France solidly over the past couple of months in support of the album, and were briefly back in the studio to work on more new material.
They've got a series of festival shows in France over the summer, including Solidays in Paris, Nuits de Fourviere in Lyon and Europavox in Clermont-Ferrand this month. A date in Montreal on June 13 is also in their diary.
But more significantly they're playing Le Zénith in Paris in January, along with gigs in Mets and Brussels. They've already played most of the venues in Paris, but Le Zénith is a big step up for them in terms of capacity.
If 2017 went out with a sombre note with the passing of Johnny, 2018 seemed to continue that theme with the death of France Gall.
A few years ago I noticed that in my day job I was having to write an increasing number of obit pieces for stars of the 60s and 70s, as time began to take its toll. Inevitably there will be more losses to the music scene over 2018, that's part of life and there's no escaping it. But no point in getting too maudlin, I've always been keener to celebrate what's happening now and in the future than to dwell on what has been. The likes of Johnny and France Gall will never be forgotten, but those who continue the work these pioneers began deserve our attention.
As I mentioned elsewhere, 2018 has so far been a year of acts I've previously featured on this blog returning with strong new material. Bagarre, Cats on Trees, Feu! Chatterton, Dominique A and Owlle to name just a few.
It's also been worth noting how France's female artists have been getting some serious recognition. Maybe it's a consequence of Christine and the Queens carrying the flag for French music to an international audience like few others have done in recent years, but maybe France has been a more fertile place for female artists over the preceding decades.
While the likes of Mylene Farmer, Jane Birkin and France Gall have been measured by critics in terms of their male collaborators, their enduring careers tell a story of a popular audience that perhaps welcomes the female artist more that the male music critic does.
Did you notice, incidentally, the run of posts featuring female artists in January? It actually wasn't intentional and just unfolded that way, with the likes of Cats on Trees, Mylene, Owlle etc all getting my attention over a period of time and before I noticed there was more than ten female artists in a row.
One other female artists who will hopefully be attracting some attention in the UK in the near future is Halo Maud, who plays live dates across the country supporting Baxter Dury. Many of the shows are already sold out.
Also taking to the road around the UK is Barbagallo, ahead of their new album to be released in March. Their L'echappee video was one of January's real delights, and their album is likely to be one of 2018's real highlights.
There are also London shows from a few key French acts, with Petit Biscuit at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town on February 10, Kungs playing Ministry of Sound on February 17 and a sold-out show from Ibeyi on February 28 at the Electric in Brixton.
Weird statistics this month in terms of visitor numbers, but the only statistic that really matters to us here is the number of posts we managed to make. I know we're a long way from delivering anything like the number of short pieces we did a few years ago, but any month that sees more than 24 posts leaves me happy that I've been doing my job here.
Why 24 posts? Because that was the total we managed to do on the first year of the vive le roq blog. That's right. 24 posts over A WHOLE YEAR. So more than that in a month always feels like some kind of victory!
As always, you can contact us at 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 drop me an email. I'm always keen to hear new things, and relay information about acts I already know and love.
The blog is also on Twitter as @viveleroq, although that's pretty much just an autofeed when we update with a new article. You can usually find me on my personal Twitter account quicker, @karnag
If you're around Facebook, remember to like the French Music Podcast UK page, where you can get regular updates with both fresh and vintage French music.
Thanks as always to the good folks at Oui Love Music From France.
Delighted to see another new track from Feu! Chatterton emerge ahead of the release of their second album. Ginger following the tracks L'ivresse and Souvenir, both of which emerged towards the end of last year.
Their new album is to be titled L'oiseleur and comes out on March 9.
No video this time, but not a problem. This is a strong release, and will sit well on any album.
Their Ici Le Jour (A Tout Enseveli) debut was one of my favourite releases in recent years, an eloquent work carried off with character and style.
Les Inrocks website, an authority on such matters, described them this week as 'one of the most interesting French groups of their generation', something we could only agree with.
The prospect of a new Feu! Chatterton album really makes me thing that 2018 is quietly shaping up to be a vintage year for French music. It's just one of a number of albums by some of our favourite acts with releases scheduled over the forthcoming weeks. It's a long way from Easter and there are already three or four that I reckon could be pretty significant ready to come out.
Feu! Chatterton are touring extensively across France in March, April and May and play at the Bataclan in Paris on April 9 and 10.
Another new clip from Feu! Chatterton ahead of the release of their second album,
It follows the track Souvenir, which emerged at the end of November, but L'ivresse has a quite different feel to it.
L'ivresse came out just before the Christmas holiday season, giving everyone plenty of time to experience it over the last couple of weeks.
I'm a huge fan of Feu! Chatterton and the prospect of a new album from them is one of the things to look forward to in 2018.
Their debut was one of my favourite releases in recent years, articulate and intelligent but also stylish and playful at the same time. Clever and musically inventive without being too serious, and shot through with the kind of flavour you can only really get from being immersed in a French cultural backdrop.
Feu! Chatterton are touring extensively in March, April and May and play at the Bataclan in Paris on April 9 and 10.
A live video by the mighty Feu! Chatterton for the track Ophélie.
Its' the opening track on their debut album Ici le jour (a tout enseveli), one of the highlights of last year.
A reminder - if we need one - that the band are a mighty impressive live proposition.
They're in the middle of their latest series of live dates at the moment, and play the Olympia in Paris on Monday October 17.
The band have been touring extensively over the past few months, with festival sets as well as headline shows of their own, in Europe and North America.
They've got dates elsewhere in France until mid November.
A five-star session by the mighty Feu! Chatterton for Belgian blog Bruxelles Ma Belle.
An acoustic take on Boeing at the Hotel Metropole gives the track a stylish setting, the band looking at home in the plush surroundings.
The vesion of Le Pont Marie takes another track from the band's debut album in the photogenic and luxurious setting at the heart of the city.
Feu! Chatterton continue their live dates that followed the release of their Ici le jour (a tout enseveli) album with festival shows in the next few days, including the Montreux Jazz Festival and the festival Pause Guitar.
I was absolutely delighted when Feu! Chatterton agreed to answer a few questions via email for vive le roq.
The band have been firm favourites of this site since they came to my attention thanks to coverage in Les Inrocks, and their debut album Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli) was a perfect package that surpassed expectations. Literate, intelligent and distinctive, they've become one of the most exciting voices to have emerged in France in recent years
Needless to say, I wasn't the only critic to welcome their album, a reaction which delighted the band. "It has been such a great pleasure to see how well received it was by the media but also by the people.
"By the time we started our album tour (that we called “Ici le Tour”, if you get the very subtle wordplay here...), almost all the main French national media had already talked about us, and apart from a very few of them, in such a positive way that we couldn’t think it was real.
"We still had quite an apprehension about going on tour with this kind of media hype pressure, and maybe not fill up all of our gigs, or even find some empty concert halls...but we quickly found out that people were here, coming to the gigs, and now we’re really happy about it."
The band have been attracting attention for a while before the album emerged. Were they concerned about the weight of expectation?
"Let’s say it took a while, but not that much. Yes, a whole year between the debut EP and the debut album is quiet a lot, but in the meantime we did a lot of things!
"We actually recorded a second EP called Bic Medium, that had been released in April 2015, right between the first EP and the album. And it was quiet a piece of work for us, because it’s a 14 minutes track, played in live conditions, and recorded one shot.
"30 takes for one winner and it took us weeks just to rehearse the track...We wanted this track to be kind of collection track, a submarine track, that would be know just by a few, that’s why we made it with a limited 300 ex edition, only in vinyl.
"But to answer the question, we were definitely having had expectations for the first LP, and we didn’t want time to be our limit for our experimentations in studio. That’s part of the reason we signed an artist contract with Barclay, they would offer us time to do exactly what we wanted to to.
"And even with these three weeks we spend in a Swedish studio and the two next months in Paris for the additional tracks, we had to postpone for a month the release of the album because we weren’t satisfied enough with the mixing part."
The band has been around since 2011, how has Feu Chatterton! and their material developed in that period?
"In 2011 we were just three people (Arthur, Clément and Sébastien) and we were a bit tired and upset of the music we were playing with our previous band. It was a mix of slam, jazz and funk music, but everything was complex, from the music itself to the rehearsals. When Arthur and I decided to play a more simple music, trying to sing our lyrics - not tell them as a slam music - without being afraid anymore of doing a regular rock and sometimes pop music, Feu! Chatterton was really born.
"So at this moment when we kind of split the previous band, we composed and wrote a big amount of songs. Then Seb who was abroad for his studies came back, I had myself to leave too and they kept writing with Arthur, many new songs. At the end of the year, we were back the three of us, with a shit load of songs that we wanted to play live. We found among our friends Antoine playing the bass, and Raphaël the drum player, and we started to play gigs all around Paris for about two years, still composing and writing as much as we could."
Feu! Chatterton seem very aware of past influences, whether in art literature and music. I was keen to know What particular artists, whether working in art, music or literature etc were an influenced.
"We are indeed aware of past influences, and contemporary ones too. In literature, Arthur who writes the lyrics had been influenced as much by Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Fante, Bolano as by Booba, a kind of hardcore rap singer.
"For the music, it’s even wider I think: as each of us has many different personal tastes, we kind of mixed up Apex Twin, Miles Davis, LCD Soundsystem, The Beatles, Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Television, Chet Baker, Portishead, Fela Kuti...From time to time we end up agreeing about something, and we do a song!"
There is also a very modern feel to the album, how does balance this with older influences?
"It’s not really an effort to balances things together, old influences and contemporary music. When you compose music, or record it, you need to listen to things you like, and it can be from you personal CD collection, or from your friend who really needs to make you listen to this amazing track.
"At the end, you just do as your emotions tell you to do, no matter if you took a Brahms type melody and played it with a Roland SH101 right back from the 80es. On the top of it, if Arthur wants to speak about an “amour courtois” with a slice of hardcore French slang vocabulary, let’s do it if it sounds good."
Feu! Chatterton sing in French, does that make you them accessible to a French audience, and do they consider it a barrier to an anglophone audience?
"It’s not even something we take in consideration actually. We started the band with the only intention of playing music with Arthur’s lyrics, and they were in French so we did with what we had!
"But stepping back a little bit, we realise now that music in French is truly much more appreciated than in the 2000s or even the early 2010s. It’s a chance for us, but we didn’t really think about it when we started the band. As for the anglophone audience, come on, learn French guys!"
So would they ever consider recording your songs in English,like Christine and the Queens did recently?
"No, it would twist our songs to try to translate them by ourselves. We are not native speakers in English (as you can see in this interview...), and our lyrics is 50% of our work: we would be screwed in doing this. However, if we have hell of a good text that we love in English, maybe we’ll do a song!2
So will we see them play in the UK? "For the UK, we’d love to come over and play gigs, would you invite us?"
I love the use of a painting by Redon on the cover. How did that come about?
"We were looking for a good cover for months. We tried so many things, ask so many people, and suddenly, our manager came out of nowhere with this painting, saying: what about that?
"As we are five people in the band, constantly debating for every single thing, the fact that everybody liked it in the first place made us know that we had the right cover. It was simply beautiful and made sense at the same time: this melancholic woman, who could actually be a man, was all we where telling in the album. And these colours, yellow and blue were definitely the colours who where looking for our music."
2016 sees Feu! Chatterton play monthly dates at Le Trianon in Paris. Why that particular venue and what can we expect?
"The dates in the Trianon started in October and should end in May. We wanted to create a monthly meeting with our city, Paris, in order to offer something familiar to the audience during our tour. For us it’s also the occasion to see our family ! We love to play there, the gigs are sold out and we feel that people feel pleased as much as we do, to see us playing at home. For the upcoming dates at Le Trianon, I think we will try to make some surprises, guest stars, unreleased songs, helicopters..."
Finally, the album the viveleroq.com album of the year 2015. Congratulations! What message would you have for an anglophone audience?
"I’d say I know we weren’t the best in rock music, and you guys had always the creme de la creme in the UK, but please listen to French music, it’s not that bad ! Come on, en plus le français c’est facile mec ! And thank you Viveleroq! "
A look at French music in 2015 cannot fail to take into account the tragedies that unfold in Paris. Discussing the events in the context of a music blog seems both inapproriate but unavoidable, such was the shadow cast.
To ignore it would be grossly insensitive, but to mention it a crass appropriation of other people's sorrow.
But I've always been interested in French music, and that is what will focus on here. I'll leave the geopolitics to others, but the events that unfolded this year will be felt in the French music world for years to come.
In terms of what else happened in music in 2015, there might not have been a massive international breakthrough like Daft Punk, but the acts at the current forefront of the French scene have continued to release strong new material.
Christine and the Queens released their debut album in the USA with new songs including the wonderful Jonathan.
Stromae's Quand c'est was one of the year's most remarkable videos, as the success of his 2013 Racine Carrée collection saw him embark on adventures in North America and Africa.
Respectable releases too from stars of previous generations, with new material from Mylene Farmer, Johnny Hallyday and Jean-Michel Jarre all showing that established artists can still have something to offer.
But focussing on five of the best releases of 2015 brings some other acts to mind.
Fauve's Vieux Frères, Partie 2 was the release that saw the act fully deliver on the promise of their debut. As good as that release was, it never quite hit the spot for me as much as I felt it should. No reservations about its follow up whatsoever, and with Les Hautes Lumières simply one of the best French language songs of recent years.
A more electronic proposition came from Rone, with the album Creatures. It's a mature and confident album, taking modern electronic music somewhere where it is more cerebral, but remains accessible at the same time.
Who would have expected an album that saw Grand Corps Malade with not only Charles Aznavour and also include the return or Renaud? GCM's Il nous restera ça album took seemingly disparate elements in its stride, and raised the bar when it comes to spoken word performance.
An album I thouroughly enjoyed was the debut by Blind Digital Citizen, Premières vies, which came out in March. It continues the trend of France producing wonderful genre defying modern rock acts, somewhere between rock, electro and psychedelic with a nod to chanson.
But if an album of the year must be chosen, unquestionably it came from Feu! Chatterton in the form of their Ici le jour (a tout enseveli) collection.
The Paris-based five piece have this year moved from critical acclaim to becoming one of the country's most significant acts. Their influences run deep, from 18th Century poetry, 19th century painters and Alain Bashung , jazz, and indie rock, but the songs on their album sound like no one else.
A great new video by the mighty Feu! Chatterton for the track Fou à Lier.
The track comes from their debut album Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli), which was released in October.
Feu! Chatterton have taken the step from developing act to critically and commercially acclaimed artists with ease
The band are presently in mid-tour, a tour which sees them play a sold-out date at Le Traianon in Pairs in December, as well as shows at the venue in January, February, March , April and May next year.
A nice live TV session by blog favourites Feu! Chatterton, with an appearande on C à vous last week.
Feu! Chatterton have just released their debut album the track Boeing featuring on it.
The France 5 talk show is on MOnday to Friday, hosted by Anne-Sophie Lapix.
The band are working hard to promote tha album, and are on an extensive tour that saw them play a sold-out show at Le Trianon in Paris last month.
They're playing there again on December 11 and one again on January 27, having just published a list of dates for January, February and March next year.
Another quality session this week on Acoustic, the music show on TV5Monde.
It was the turn or Feu! Chatterton, who released their debut album Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli) earlier this month.
The programme also sees the band in conversation with host Sébastien Folin.
Feu! Chatterton are currently on tour, having played a sold-out show at Le Trianon in Paris on October 19. They're playing there again on December 11 and on January 27, having just published a list of dates for January, February and March next year.
Tracks played in the session were Le Pont Marie, Côté Concorde, Boeing and La mort dans la pinède
Another significant album release today, with the debut collection by Feu! Chatterton finally
available.
Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli) may not be the easiest title for an anglophone audience, but the charms of this collection are easy for anyone to grasp.
Feu! Chatterton present a sound that's soaked in French musical heritage, while being sharp enough for a 21st century post-indie audience. Effortlessly classy.
This album should establish them as one of France's finest.
I'll be very surprised if there's not some recognition for this band and this album in next year's Victoires de la musique awards, at very least.
Feu! Chatterton are on tour at the moment, with a sold-out show at Le Trianon in Paris on October 19, and anther show there on December 11.
Last night, meanwhile, saw the well-turned out Frenchmen perform on the Canal+ flagship show Le Grand Journal.
A new track unveiled by Feu! Chatterton in a live session, with Le Pont Marie emerging ahead of the release of their debut album.
The new track follows the single Boeing, released last month.
The album by the five piece is a highly anticipated release, the band winning both the public and the jury Sosh aime les inRocKs lab 2014 prize for new talent.
The album, entitled Ici Le Jour (A Tout Enseveli), is to be released on October 16.
They're touring France extensively from October, with a sold-out show in Paris at the Trianon on October 19 and another on December 11.
