H-Burns - Late Bloomers

A new release from H-Burns is usually a cause for celebration, especially with the new single Late 

Bloomers being such an impressive piece of work.

The video, with its American big-screen teen drama stylings, makes a strong case for being extended into a full-length movie. Even with a running time of just a few minutes, it feels like it's either been constructed from scenes from a film you've seen years ago and half remember or it's a promo for a film you want to see because you want to know how the characters and their narrative will play out. There's a sense of melancholic nostalgia, but with a promise of a better future.

While "In our time we were happier and prettier" is one hell of a lyric, the song is no downbeat lookback. Instead, it rings with defiance and a rage against the dying of the light: 

"Can we turn the light any brighter? 

Can we play the songs any louder? 

We can always try..."

We can indeed. Play this song louder to start with.

The last major release from H-Burns was the Burns on the Wire album from September 2021, where he played tribute to Leonard Cohen on an album of cover versions featuring collaborations with Pomme, Bertrand Belin and Lou Doillon. It's a majestic release and highly recommended.

I've been listening H-Burns since his 2013 Off the Map album, and every release has seen him develop as a significant artist. It both surprises and disappoints me that he's not better known. Hopefully that will change before too long.

His new album Sunset Park is released on February 3 on Yotanka records. So far it's already looking like a vintage year for French music releases. The new H-Burns album should be one of the early highlights of 2023. 

He's playing at La Maroquinerie in Paris on June 8.

H-Burns: Live at the We Love Green

A chance to catch the live set by H-Burns at the We Love Green festival in Paris the other weekend,
courtesy of the good people at Arte making the show available to watch online.

The show was held at the Parc de Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne on Saturday May 30. H-Burns were the opening band to play the event that also featured Christine and the Queens, C.A.R., Flavien Berger and other favourites of this blog.

It's great to see H-Burns playing in such a pastoral setting on such a beautiful day.  Can there be a better place for a show than in a park in Paris on a sunny afternoon?

H-Burns deserves to be massive, or at least well known as a cult act outside France. A listen and a watch of their set should convince you.

Their last album Night Moves was released in January this year and a special record store day release album of covers emerged since then.

Disquaire Day / Record Store Day releases

Much excitement about his year's Record Store Day releases, where independent record dealers
across the world get exclusive releases, limited editions and special events.

The UK sees a coloured vinyl Air single Playground Love / Highschool Lover, which also features in the Disquaire Day catalogue in France.

France gets many of the international releases, featuring big manes like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, but France sees a great many special French releases, many by favourite acts of this blog.

Aline release a 7 inch of La vie électrique / Plus noir encore, while Christine and the Queens release a four track Ep featuring Science Fiction /  Intranquilité / Paradis Perdus and Amazoniaque in an edition of 550 copies.

Etienne de Crecy has four releases, from his Super Discount 3 collection and Feu! Chatterton a limited 7 inch, with only 300 copies of bic medium / vierge.

H- Burns has an album of cover versions, with 350 copies of The Lo-Fi Series album.

There's a live ep by Jean Louis Murat.

There are a couple of archive Heldon releases on vinyl, Live in Paris 1975 and Live in Paris 1976.

Elsewhere n the world of magnificent 70s French prog, there's a Magma 7 inch of Floh Essi,, in a limited edition of 250 copies.

Matmatah get a 4 album box set of their four studio collections and Zoufris Maracas see a vinyl version of their most recent Chienne de Vie album

You'll find them, if you're lucky, in record shops across France on April 18. If you pick up a spare copy of the Heldon or the H-Burns albums, let me know ;-)

Report: Bars en Trans, Rennes 2014

The Bars en Trans event held in Rennes in early December is a separate event to the Trans Musicales, but like he Edinburgh Festival and the Festival Fringe, they compliment each other well.

Bars en Trans features more local and French acts, in venues across the city from night clubs to bars, over the course of three nights.

And what's not to like about an event  promising  everything from 'pop/Paris' to  'Doo-Wop/Haute Savoie' and 'Hard-Folk/Ardeche'?

Obviously one problem is that there's so much going on that it's not possible to catch everything, and with the Trans Musicales on at the same time, there are even more clashes between acts I wanted to see.

Rennes is in Brittany, an area of France where bars are more common that Parisian style cafés, and it has the kind of young population  that thrives on events like les Bars en Trans.


Hardy young souls could be seen hitting the city's old town, see some of the bands and then catch the shuttle bus out to the Parc Expo for some of the headliners at the Trans Musicales

Last year I managed to catch a show by Sudden Death of Stars and Orval Carlos Sibelius, one of the highlight of my time in Rennes, so I was keen to make the most of the Bars en Trans.

The show that fitted best with my packed schedule was at the 1988 Live Club and was due to feature Kid Francescoli, H-Burns and Camp Claude, but a late-minute substitution saw Animali perform instead of Camp Claude.

Kid Francescoli presented a very stylish electropop, a male/female due with a drummer, and they made the kind of sound that inspires confidence in French music. Effortlessly modern with the kind of electronics that French artists have always done so well, and a live dynamic that was as much Gainsbourg and Birkin as it was Ellie and Jacno.

Animali may have been the late additions  to the bill, but the quintet from Lyon were no simple fillers, producing the kind of indie rock that fans of 70s progressive acts would have instantly recognised. An act with hidden depth of musicianship wrapped in approachable and crafted songs.

The headline act was H-Burns, who I featured here before, bringing a French take on US indie rock of the 90s. His outlook might be more far west that western France, with a flavour reminiscent of Howe Gelb of Giant Sand but his style is his own. He's got a new album due in January entitled Night Moves, and it will certainly bring in 2015 in style.

Three very different acts, each in their own way superbly illustrating some of the present strengths of French music.

While I certainly did well by attending that particular show, I've been left with the feeling that Bars en Trans is the kind of event that pretty much every show would have been worth going to, and I've now got a massive list of acts to investigate further.

H-Burns: Opposite Ways

A video for the track Opposite Ways by H-Burns, from the album Off the map.

The album which was released in February on Vietnam/Because Music, was produced by the legendary Steve Albini. The track Six years came out as an EP in 2012.

Off the Map is H-Burns' fourth album, recorded at Albini's Electrical Audio studios in Chicago.

It follows the album We Go Way Back, and is another classy piece of US-style indie,  albeit one with a French origin.

Opposite Ways also features on a new four track EP that also includes out-takes from the album sessions and a demo version of Opposite Way