Born in a distant electronic music big bang, Atoem is an unidentified musical object, a two-part musical piece made of alchemists and experimenters. The pair has been engaged in the methodical creation of a perfect techno, mixing cold variants, and elementary sound particles for several months. At the heart of Rennes cosmos, Gabriel Renault and Antoine Talon, two machine artists with invariable symmetry, are the modern and mystical poets of the electronic scene, delivering with methodic prudence a series of spatial symphonies, while making their audience dance to the pulse of their soul.
Black Zone Myth Chant is the cosmic alias of Maxime Primault, the man behind High Wolf and a whole lot of other side projects and daredevils. Since his debut in 2009 on the American label Not Not Fun under the name of High Wolf, Max P develops his own musical universe, between an obsession for world music, electronic research and psychedelic experiments. Since then he has released many albums under this name, the latest one on Leaving Records, and has toured the globe, from Japan to USA, from Brazil to Russia, China or Australia. But High Wolf is not alone, over the years many side projects have emerged, including Black Zone Myth Chant (BZMC), often described as an unlikely encounter between Sun Ra and Dj Screw.
Revealed in 2014 at Astropolis and Transmusicales festivals, Blutch rose to become a new ambassador of electronic music in France. Counting on many releases on Nowadays, Dance Around 88 or Délicieuse Musique, and various collaborations with Terrence Parker, Red Rack’em, Maxime Dangles or Strip Steve, he is supported by prestigious artists from Laurent Garnier to Tom Trago and the media (XLR8R, Resident Advisor, Radio Nova, Tsugi and Trax). In 2019, the producer is still boiling, with a debut LP announcement, to be released following year on Astropolis Records and distributed by Kompakt. Terre Promise is a tribute to Blutch native Brittany and a new sound turning point, revealing erratic and classy electronic sounds with many featuring (Maxime Dangles, Mirabelle Gillis). This album will expose its full beauty on stage, with the video maker Romain Navier, who will spin a gripping audiovisual tale: a total immersion between two worlds, real and dreamlike, mixing meditative landscapes and abstract dreams. A total experience into the Terre Promise universe. Meanwhile this great adventure, a new EP La Cité des Etoiles has been released earlier this year, with a remix from Kompakt’s legend Michael Mayer.
The trajectory of Broken Back (Jérôme Fagnet’s stage name) looks like a boxing film screenplay. It tells the story of a young man who followed a promising career path who experiences physical collapse and fond salvation in music and major success as a result. Broken Back is the turning point in this dreamlike journey. The self-titled first album is filled with twists of fate, resilience and happiness regained.
The Breton artist had already defied expectations with his 2015 EP Dear Misfortune, Mother of Joy. Elegant, effective and illuminated, his work sits somewhere between alternative and pure pop, a hit with the press, radio and festival crowds (Solidays, Francofolies, etc.) that has taken him to some of the most prestigious stages in France (Le Trianon, Café de la Danse).
A world of space, sunshine, vast panoramas and a knowing depiction of ordinary and ephemeral life—these are Broken Back’s gifts to his generation. Is the current climate all depression and fear of dark days to come? Broken Back soothes the wounds, comforts you, guitar in hand, with a silky beat behind lyrics which speak of hope and joy, bringing blue skies where it was gloomy before.
Columbine formed in 2014. It is a French rap collective mainly led by Lujipeka and Foda C from Rennes, in Brittany. After a first album, Clubbing for Columbine, released in 2016, the group released Enfants terribles in 2017 and Adieu bientôt in 2018. Adieu Bientôt is a mix of solo titles from Foda C, solos from Lujipeka or duets of Lujipeka-Foda C, other titles are made with Chaman (Teen Spirit, Brûler) or with Sully (Labo Photo). As different as it is complementary, Columbine has no limits. And if the evolution is sensitive, the musical core is intact : the compositions can be signed by Foda and Luji, or by the affiliated composers of the crew, already heard on Enfants Terribles : Skuna, Kiyane, Saavane, KCIV (their DJ), as much as beats gleaned from the Internet and then reworked. The musical palette is intensified by Seezy, producer of Vald, of Junior Alaprod (Shay, MHD, Siboy …) or Ponko (Damso, SCH); until their compatriot Rennais Etienne Daho, whose piece Les flocons de l’été is used as the basis for Lujipeka’s Puzzle.
Death Engine, a three-piece from Lorient is composed of Mik L. (Guitar / Vocals), Eric L. (Bass guitar) and Olivier R. (Drums), formed in October 2011 and play a violent and noisy hardcore. They released a first EP, Amen, jointly released by Throatruiner Records, Basement Apes Industries and North Cult Records in 2013. A seconde record, named Mud, was released in early 2015. After a break of several years, Death Engine is back.
At sixteen Désiré Eba Tolo opened for Niska while his classmates were revising their courses. The early success made him quit school to continue his rapper vocation. The young person man from Quimper is driven by a mad passion which can be heard in his productions. Inspired by both Kendrick Lamar and Damso, he overlays melodic flows and outlet words which say a lot about the young man’s maturity and independence.
Félicia Atkinson is a visual artist, an experimental musician, a poet and the co-publisher of Shelter Press.
Her works deals with topics of improvisation, deep listening, cut ups, duration, silence and noise, musique concrete, poetic spaces, deserts, forests, animism, abstraction, ambient and language. She released a dozen of records and books, mostly published by Shelter Press.
Her latest LP, Hand in Hand was number 14 of the year charts in The Wire Magazine whereas the previous opus, A readymade Ceremony was one of the «best experimental albums» by Pichfork and Spin Magazine.
Fuzeta was composed of three brothers, Dorian, Charles and Pierre Sims and Jérémy, a childhood friend. The four of them created an Indie rock band in 2014. Revealed at the Transmusicales festival in Rennes and at Les Francofolies de La Rochelle, winners of the Ricard Music Live prize have experienced a meteoric rise. If Jérémy left the adventure since then, two friends of the Sims, Charles Le Dorven and Thomas Schneider joined the band. Today, Fuzeta has just finished the composition of their new album due in early 2020.
“Everything changes permantly. How boring if it wouldn’t. ” Klaus Schulze – Tangerine Dream
It is with these words in mind that Christophe Le Comte imagines his music. After playing the synths with Juveniles, it is only with the company of its different machines and other DIY modules that he signed his first compositions under his name.
Back to his first loves, he frees himself from pop and approaches without limitation of styles or length: an ambient tinged with electronica, a work already started with Monogram, one of his previous projects. In these long improvised beaches, creation is not a stage but the purpose. What comes out of it is songs in perpetual rewriting, recalling in many aspects the music by Alessandro Cortini (NIN) or Tangerine Dream. Le Compte offers a lively live show, constantly under construction, to be listened to as much as to be looked at.
Text by Jeanne Nicolle
Leska is the meeting of two complementary artistic sensitivities, those of the two French producers : Les Gordon and Douchka.
Leska is above all things a lab where the two bros like to experiment with freedom, following their instincts without setting any borders to their universe. They’re always humbly looking at a great and beautiful ambition: to renovate the word Pop, stretching its lines and shades and imagining new ways to define it.
Hidden under a sunhat, sunglasses and mustache, Lorenzo appeared on YouTube in 2015 like a pop-up window. His White-trash attitude, his verve both literary and filthy, and his quirky videos are his trademarks. Coming from the Rennes collective Columbine, he goes solo releasing a first album (platinum disc) in 2018. As the haters would not believe he would last long in the music business, he clashes them with with second album just a year later, which would be a massive success as well. Rapper, braggart, boaster, and asshole as well as contemporary artist and underground rapper, Lorenzo went after French rap with massive self-confidence and sold out-tours across France.
MellaNoisEscape was launched in 2014.
Olivier Mellano puts aside his rather gargantuan projects to return alone, to meet again with raw energy, electric cataracts and sonic cascades.
Mellano Having put his guitars to the service of Mobiil, Psykick Lyrikah, Bed, Laetitia Shériff and Dominique A, Olivier Mellano presents his solo album MellaNoisEscape. Somewhere between Shellac, Battles, Pinback and Blonde Redhead.
Noise That moment when the sound is its own medium. A monumental arch of guitars, through which we hear the flow of baroque melody and tribal harmonies.
Espace Being alone with a main goal of dynamiting the present
Flexible collective (which is made of eight musicians), Mermonte is firstly the project of the young composer and multi-instrumentalist Ghislain Fracapane. After four years of absence, the band from Rennes just released their third album Mouvement last autumn: as ambitious and radiant as ever, the universal pop of Mermonte delights with its obvious charm.
Praa imposes a modern soul, as ambitious as it is light. Under the name hides a young erudite woman whose ability to synthesize influences impresses. These titles, claiming as much RnB as evanescent Trip Hop or New Jack from the early 90s, are based on a falsely minimalist production to better gain momentum. A universe based on abundant vocal work and melodies with golden hues that unfurls like a fan from which an invigorating air escapes.
SARO is considered by all to be the new international reference of Beatbox Loopstation. His recent win at the 2018 World Championships is there to prove it. Between trap, bass music and electro pop, SARO breaks the codes of the discipline and takes it to another dimension! A little genius to discover live…
By discovering Sônge’s electronic r’n’b, it is easy to understand that James Blake was a shock for her, but we can also find other relatives with the insolence of MIA and with the whimsical freedom of Cocorosie. Breton, Océane Belle began to compose alone during her studies between Germany, the Netherlands and France. Alone on stage with her machines, Sônge presents a dreamlike and synthetic show of a post-soul empress.
An agitator of nights in Rennes since 2010 with his collective Midi Deux, Théo Muller is a DJ and zealous producer, able to play at any time and for hours. Passionate, smart and charming, it caused a sensation in many festivals – Dimensions in Croatia, Trans Musicales … – and renowned clubs like the famous Parisian Concrete (Concrete Music is also the publisher by Finistère Amer, his second EP, praised by Laurent Garnier, Move D, Chloé, AZF and Zadig). A fan of Rammstein, but also of Prodigy, Staub or Voiski, he infuses and diffuses “a quality techno, nonchalant, clean and engaging (…) loaded with scholarly breakbeat and deep soul influences”.
