WL//WH Premiere GRAND GARÇON
Grand Garçon, photo Guillaume Janot/ADAGP
Today, Dec 17, we are very happy to Premiere another musical ornament from Mary McIntyre‘s treasury, the debut “Le Sang” EP by Grand Garçon (en France). This brilliant record with 5+1 songs is coming out today through TONN Recordings sister label New Sinister, and it reveals once again that peculiar and trademark sonic tribe that is strongly defending its grounds with only victories, my friends, in a course of decades on the ‘waves’; the French Wave we adore is still sounding the same attractive, groovy, sexy at times, a groundbreaking by all means, and so-so-so lovely stubborn like in many other parts of the world we love to follow their deeds.
When I say ‘trademark’ sound I mean the musical approach that is larger than life, that style that shaped (and still shaping) the entire genre itself. We say ‘Oakland deathrock’, ‘Bristol trip-hop, ‘N.Y. punk’, ‘London indies’, ‘Portland alternative rock’, ‘Berlin techno’ with the list looking so vast and to be fully mentioned in this text but you got what I mean. So, here is the evolution of the French Wave which is more interested in new machines and hardware paraphernalia rather than getting out of its ‘trademark’ rails. This is what made it so attractive in the decades, to be listening to that style and grooving again and again with it without any guilt as ‘we’re not on the line’.
The French Wave is an encyclopedia alone with a very long catalog of amazing and often “outrageous’ musings temperamentally offering another perspective on pop-music-with-machines, or as one of my ‘electro-friends’ has noticed way ago in the past “Mike when the French started discovering the new machines in the late 70s, no one could predict a new genre within the already new wave, and they never stopped since then”….and that sounded to me like a tribe with no clear destination but with a certain goal to show their army to the world.
Grand Garçon is offering to the French Wave all his ‘provocative modernism’ as he found it sired in the dusty underground spaces he has performed as a DJ, and what makes his debut record one release you have to listen to it, is that it all sounds somehow new, fresh, wicked enough, dark liking, and as I mentioned before ‘attractive’ in terms of its production and music quality, and also put in my mood “I’m gonna leave it playing all the way until I finish this piece”. The opening song on the “Le Sang” EP is “Pas Que Toi” with an official video too, check it out and I’ll be back for more…
…so that was the first handshake with Grand Garçon who composed and played everything in the album, a guy who knows exactly where to guide the listener (audience) with his striking French (Wave) immediacy. You know, not all French play that kind of music but I guess the real ‘provocateurs’ are mostly people with machines-in-handy and not only with gtr-bass-drums. I also like his voice on the mic, very cinematic and so artistic like the first milk he swallowed in the musical genre that he was born in. Do not expect the whole record to sound like that song, no, you must expect to find a lot of other elements from the French Wave in there. Minimalism, yes, Mechanism, yes, Industrialism, yes, Sweetness, yes, and with the lurking grey all over it. “Le Sang” EP is a nice record until its last song and then it becomes addictive when you’re looking at what else you play after that and it goes on repeat alone. This is the success of this release. If you want me to give you more focus tracks I’d choose “L’aventure” and the title song “Le Sang” but you should also check “Come Ca”, I have reasons to point that specific song to you.
The record was produced by Guilhem Hatt from We Are Knights with a very solid sound all over and without any ‘gaps’ and ‘misconceptions’, and this album comes from the choices of Mary McIntyre‘s from Belfast, TONN Recordings, now with another sister label called New Sinister focusing more on music that could be off-side on TONN. NS currently ‘plays’ with NoWave, French Wave, post-punk and avant-garde musings, and who knows what else this honest and connected merchant shall find in her way, Mary from N.Ireland who is a successful visual artist, who is crazy with music and arts too, and with the most respect from us in WL//WH to her and to GRAND GARÇON too!!!
Keep Up With GRAND GARÇON:
Written by Loud Cities’ Mike
