The Sunny Street started as a duo/couple formed by Remi and Delphine in 2006.Their first songs were written/recorded between packing and goodbyes while moving from France to England.
Their songs could be best described as idilic, easy listening, escapist bedroom pop. They have a exquisite delicacy and romantic atmosphere that one could feel in a vast, empty field or alone with headphones while sitting in a park.
So far, they have releases on Lavender, Cloudberry, Slumberland and their latest album 'Hidden For Decades' shows a more upbeat side of the band and it was released via Plastilina Records.
"It's been difficult to pick because I listen to all the new stuff months and sometimes years after they released... I am rubbish.
These 5 songs have been important to me this year and this morning in particular (you know how these things change all the time) and I am a bit of a cheat because two of them are taken from reissues.
Beko DSL is a digital label from Nantes, France. Monday after Monday, Reno (the guy running it, with Jack) released singles, eps and compilations featuring unique sounds and artists, building more than a 'sampling label' but a respectful library of innovation (and beautiful art covers). It became an avant-garde source focusing primarily on electronic-noisy music.
Than, earlier this year, while exchanging emails with him, I discovered that it wasn't a label... actually it was, but since the beginning he knew that he was going to release 100 "digital samples" and than give an end to the project to create something new.
Now, all that's left is the website with all the 100 releases. An astonishing collection available for free download.
Isidore Isou was a romanian born french poet, film critic and visual artist. Isidore Hibou (Hibou = Owl) is the fictional name of another french artist deep influenced by Dadaism and absurdity. He graduated in cinema at La Sorbonne, and works as a writer, photographer and now ventures into music with his debut ep 'Booking Rooms'.
The 7-track release has electronic beats and guitar riffs and influences ranging from pop music to minimalism to cold wave.
He makes sure to mention that he's no professional. "I do i how I feel, without a lot of technique but I just try to translate my mood. I always begin a song without any idea; things build themselves naturally".
la cage au folk ~ ailleurs square (independent, 2009)
it's amazing the internet, isn't? there are moments when you feel like 'discovering something new', then you just start jumping from blog to blog... from myspace to myspace... or spend hours on sites like jamendo and randomly download albums from artists that you've never heard. that's what happened a few days ago and from my research i ended up discovering la cage au folk, a band from nancy, france: 6 boys, most in their early 20's, making very interesting music, mixing chanson française with folk, celtic elements and a melody crafting with hints of belle and sebastian and french singer/songwriter essiar. at the end of the album, you'll realise that you're taken into a trip on irish fields passing through a festival in a small french town lost in the 1920's. simply très jolie.
01. je t'emmènerai 02. le p'tit gars solitaire 03. souviens-toi 04. rodéo 05. a deux 06. matelot 07. un vieil air de musique
young michelin ~ young michelin ep (holiday records, 2009)
one of the latest releases from beloved holiday records and contains one of the best songs i've heard this year. four boys from aline, france playing pop with jangly guitars with catchy melodies. some flirtation with new wave is also seen every now and then. je suis fatigue will probably chart among my favorite songs of 2009 and will most likely be with me for a long time. it's a the more you hear, the more you like situation. les copains is an instrumental song with a new-wavish mood. soundtrack for summer memories captured on a vhs.
right now i'm away from home and that's the reason why i'm not updating that often... but today i received a message on my myspace profile with the answers for an interview i made with remi from the sunny street. i don't wanna sound egotistic, but this interview was made due to the release of their video form the song pottery and glass, and the video was made by me...
Q: besides the sunny street what else do you guys do? do you have "real jobs"? A: unfortunately... “real” jobs. delphine and i are working in shops. a vintage clothes shop for delphine and a french wine shop for me. how very original!
Q: how did you got together? there was music before the sunny street? or is this the first music project you're part of... A: we fell in love first of all, then we started to play together in our other band electrophönvintage (that exists since 1999) before we started tss, three years ago. we’re thinking about playing with other people for the gigs, but it’ll remain a very intimistic project, a bit secret, our thing.
Q: about the album 'they hurt you everyday': it is , in my opinion, extremely synethesic and succesfull when it comes to create a wide range of images, feelings and atmospheres, going from dark "places" to dreamy ones... what could you say about the creation of the album? how long it took to be recorded... how/where it was recorded... and what did you had in mind while creating it... A: thank you! we tried our best to keep a coherence in this album but at the same time it was a very busy and disturbing period for us when we recorded it. we were in a rush, packing things, saying goodbye, preparing the departure to england. it was so inspiring: the moments of despair, melancholy and the bursts of excitement to go and live in the city we always dreamed about. thye has been written and recorded in less than two months on our computer. it was quite amazing not to think too much, just record everything we had on our mind, like a diary.
Q: influences in music? movies? tv? comic books? history personalities? A: in music; new order, the cure, sarah records of course... a lot of new wave and just a touch of dance music especially in our new songs. we watch a lot movies, a lot of tv series as well. recently, brideshead revisited (the tv series) that takes place between the two world wars. beautiful and quite inspiring.
we’re very moved by autobiographic comic books like 'it's a good life', 'if you don't weaken or clyde’s fans by seth for example, this ability to concentrate all the feelings, the substance of everyday life in a line, in a short sentence, in a single gesture. that’s something we’d love to be able to express in a song. we keep trying.
samuel insull indirectly inspired the title of our last single on cloudberry, there’s a former hospital on our bus route named insull memorial. a old building, gothic, threatening and fascinating. samuel insull had to do with electricity, a sort of thomas edison. :))
it sounds a bit arty but architecture, london in particular, is a great great inspiration as well, we love our city so much, in all its beauty and all its sometimes toughness. a tough beauty. :)
Q: new songs coming soon? what are the plans for 2009? A: we finally found time and money to buy some equipment to record new songs in a more comfortable way. the big plan would be to release our second album or a single or both if we’re lucky! we chose a catchier orientation this time. nice bass lines. a bit of distortion as well. it’s almost finish already, the inspiration came back at last! :))
Q: name three songs you'd like to make a cover and why. A: we’d love to continue covering some eurodance from our youth, like corona’s 'the summer is magic', which is a lovely song. all her other songs are crap, but we’d quite like to try and cover 'just dance' by lady gaga. lastly, either 'sighting the sound' or 'never said goodbye' by the bats that i’m completely obsessed with.
Q: if you could give a place and time to hear your songs, what would they be? A: the only thing i know for sure is that they don’t work too well with the underground at rush hour. probably walking in a quiet street... or in a club where no one knows each other so they don't have passionated and loud discussions. ;) someone told me yesterday that he listened to the songs before to go to bed. we call these type of songs “berceuses” in france, it’s a nice idea!
Q: finally, recommend something you've been listening lately... A: we don’t listen to a lot of new bands in general, we watch the tv and sometimes there’s something we like... but if we had to recommend something that would be artists’ rifles by piano magic, it has been released in 2000 on rocket girl and it’s a fantastic album from start to finish, so coherent, so cold, so sad, so ethereal. this band became less and less interesting in my opinion but on this album everything sounds right, pure, humble and glorious at the same time.
Q: oh, and i was almost forgetting... say a few words about the song 'pottery and glass'. A: 'pottery and glass' is probably one of our favourite song of the sunny street, we’re still so moved anytime we listen to it. it is exactly what we wanted to express at the moment we recorded it and ever since we listen to it, it feels so special to us. if you add this fantastic video you shot for it... a special song for us!
the married monk ~ elephant people (ici d'ailleurs, 2008) i really like the french indie rock scene. well, not that i'm an expert when it comes to know many bands and music contexts from france... i like it because even though there isn't many inovative acts there's a sense of melody that's particular to them. ( i don't know if i made myself clear) i mean, you know when a band comes from france. today's post is about the married monk, a band that's quite inovative and that has been around since 1993 and made quite a lot of things: a pop album, another full of ballads, another with rock'n'roll songs. they also collaborated with yann tiersen that wanted to do something diferent of what he used to do. they toured together and recorded an album called all is calm in 1999... at a first listening someone may say that they are an indiepop band but, as you can hear in 'elephant people', there's a lot of surprises waiting... i'd say that elephant people is a soundtrack album. they go from rock songs to orchestrated, jazzy tunes, saxophone solos and upbeat electronics. it's quite an experience because after the first tracks, when you get the sense of the album, you don't know what to expect next. half of the songs are accompanied by christian quermalet (sometimes breathy, sometimes hauting) voice speaking. there's also instrumental songs like the beautiful and slow 'conversation piece'. and there's three or four tracks with christian showing his singing skills. 'elephant people' is a great song with awesome guitar hooks. the married monks are, with no doubt, a band that's not worried about labels and because of that their music is quite atypical as you can see, listening to a full of contrasts and multicolored album.
01. spiel 02. merricks meditations 03. introducing prodigies 04. brother j 05. me and me 06. clementines song 07. double doom 08. conversation piece 09. hail 2 the hound man 10. delphines angels 11. elephant people 12. pretty lads 13. clementines words
here's a video from a sideshow opera where the married monk played some songs from elephant people. the conception is from renaud cojo. the characters you see are from the cover of the album. no, i haven't uploaded the wrong cover art, it's because the cd comes with 8 cardboard photos of diferent circus-esque characters.
essiar ~ summer in minsk ep (radio khartoum, 1999)
cyrille essiar is a french musician and there's not much information about him... the only thing he left us before vanishing is this wonderful ep. i'm not exagerating when i say that this is a masterpiece... essiar most significant trade mark is probably his arrangements resembling toy instruments without being cliché. he surely belongs to the chanson française but he drinks (a lot) from the waters of pop and rock bands like my bloody valentine, the jesus and mary chain, the smiths. on the 6 songs you'll find dreamy guitars, lazy drums and rare melancholic feelings. 'romance' and 'madrigal' are heavenly!
01. le pied des arbres 02. aller voter 03. un cottage ecossais 04. romance 05. madrigal 06. n'en parlon plus
