L'Année Française 2014: Le Mix Francophone

Following on from last year's 8tracks mix, here is this year's 8tracks French retrospective, L'Année Française 2014: Le Mix Francophone. In what was an outstanding year in terms of both quality and quantity, this blog's favourite Francophone albums of the year can be found here, but in addition there were also an amazing number of EPs and singles that deserved to be featured in this look back at L'Année Française 2014...

L'Année Française 2014 from SteveinSoCal on 8tracks Radio.

Chantal Archambault "Amour Asphalte"

The 5-track EP "L'amour ou la soif" was Chantal's follow-up to 2013's "Les élans"  and featured a collection of five beautiful, intimate and always melodic pop-tinged folk songs from an under-rated artist. "Amour Asphalte" was a delicate and fresh up-tempo pop-song, which If you liked your songs to be thoughtful and intelligent, and weren't afraid to get in touch with your feminine side, was for you...

Grenadine "Bonjour Tristesse"

Without a doubt one of my favourite songs of the year, with its reference to the novel by Françoise Sagan, was one of the totally infectious pop songs of this or any year and featured the kind of catchy chorus and hook that you found yourself humming along to at the most inappropriate moments and representative of the timeless classics that littered Julie Brunet's glorious debut album.

Laura Babin "Sur La Route"

I suspect that I could put together my own compilation of artists who are graduates of the École Nationale de la Chanson Granby in Québec, such is the never ending conveyor-belt of talent.  Laura Babin's EP "Tranquillement" explored the rich and expansive country and folk roots of 'Americana' with "Sur La Route" influenced by the long journey from Gaspésie to Montréal; the  gentle rhythm helped to pass the time until, as Laura announces, "... Je suis arrivé..."

Whitehorse "Je suis devenue lionne"

The critically acclaimed husband and wife duo of Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland released an EP of some of their best known songs, translated (with the assistance of Montréal-based songwriter and producer Pierre Marchand) and reworked into French. "Je suis devenue lionne" ("Out Like A Lion") was a great pop-song; the vocal harmonies were just spot-on... but then the Coda hit you in the solar plexus - all crashing, reverbed guitar - as the song built to a crescendo of angelic vocals and wailing guitar... Gorgeous!

Catherine Leduc "Les vieux hiboux"

"Les vieux hiboux" helped set the melancholic theme developed throughout the ten peerless songs of "Rookie." The haunting introduction - polysynth owls swooping through midnight forests - was aided by the added tinge of fragility and humility that Catherine's vocals conveyed.

Chloé Lacasse "Renverser la vapeur"

From her astonishing sophmore album "LUNES", "Renverser la vapeur" was an incredibly melodic and up-tempo number about rebelling against the status-quo. The song really showed-off Chloé's vocal talents and was coupled with some nice touches of piano and trombone.  A great song from an artist with a great future ahead of her.

Les Hay Babies "Néguac and back"

A thoughtful and melancholic song that made reference to the towns of New Brunswick (Dieppe, Paqueteville and the Néguac of the title) the song rallied against the relentless urbanization of the region as towns and communities were displaced by large and increasingly soulless conurbations. An incredibly sad yet beautiful song...

Geneviève Racette "Bricolage"

Another graduate of the École Nationale de la chanson de Granby, Geneviève's EP was self-financed and thus "Bricolage" might be considered an apt title. However, there was nothing DIY about this sympathetically produced, folk-tinged bitter-sweet love song that was all about trying to put a broken heart back together again. The song's arrangement ensured that the melody complemented the vocals and the soaring harmonies were note-perfect.

Fear of Men "Luna" (version français)

They're from Brighton (which the last time I checked was the wrong side of La Manche). They've already appeared in this blog's Anglophone mix, but UK indie-pop band Fear of Men re-recorded a French-language version of "Luna" from their Year-Listed album"Loom." The song was one of those perfect summer record packed with bouncy, indie-pop guitars rhythms - and le version français - all jangling guitars, female vocals  - sung in French - an obviously artier and more cultured, naturellement...

Véronique Bilodeau "Sans le mots"

And here's yet another talented graduate from said École Nationale de la chanson de Granby. "Sans les mots" was one of  those seemingly effortless and achingly-beautiful romantic ballad that touched on the telepathic relationship that couples often share... With the melodic acoustic guitar and piano accompaniment brilliantly fleshed out with accordion and double-bass, Véronique's confident - soaring - yet velvety-smooth voice ensured that this was the nigh-on perfect song...

Les sœurs Boulay "Ça"

This Blog's favourite musical sisters, Mélanie and Stéphanie Boulay, released this, the most beautiful - effortless - haunting of country-folk tinged ballads which saw the girls' angelic harmonies to the fore once again... and with the added bonus of  a bow-played saw...

Blondino "Mon Amie"

Blondino are the Parisian-based duo of Tiphaine Lozupone and Jean-Christophe Orte. "Mon Amie" was another shining example of the nouvelle vague of contemporary-French indie-pop... Folk-tinged,  it was all here, acoustic guitar, downbeat tempo, melancholy lyrics; Tiphaine's vocals piercing the gloom and lifting the spirits...    

Magdalen "Pas dans ma bouche"

From an album that caused iTunes here in the States(!) to plaster a "Parental Advisory Explicit Content" sticker on the front - as if hordes of American kids were going to start learning French - "Pas dans ma bouche" built upon a scorching late-eighties indie guitar riff before Magdalen spat-out her contempt for the target of her scorn, "You truly are a moron, the I.Q of a protozoa..." 

Fôret "Un secret"

Émilie Laforest and Joseph Marchand returned with another trademark tune that described a dark, disturbing aural landscape, yet which at the same time was unnervingly reassuring and comforting - again walking the tightrope between subconscious dreams and nightmares. Renowned poet Kim Doré providing les mots, Émilie the haunting voice, all over which Joseph weaved the evocative soundtrack...

Josianne Paradis "Janvier"

Josianne Paradis' EP "De Lorimier" comprised four slices of perfect contemporary adult-pop of distinctly varying moods and styles. "Janvier" was a sombre  number over a poignant piano melody; The bitterly cold wind of the song whistling down Montréal's Avenue De Lorimier acted as a metaphor for a rapid chilling romance... There's a profound image of the song's narrator and her cat, both noses pressed against a door, neither sure whether to venture outside, frozen by a paralysis of fear...

Salomé Leclerc "Arlon"

Decisions, decisions... Which song to pick from Salomé's universally acclaimed album? In the end - and like nearly every other review before me - I picked "Arlon". Layered reverbed bass and electric guitar created the image of a winter's night as it gave way to dawn; Salomé's tell-tale rasping, breathless floated over steady, quite deliberate percussion. And then  analogue synths kicked-in, the pitch raised to lift both tempo and mood...

Fanny Bloom "Drama queens"

The crowning moment of an album chock-full of up-tempo pop-songs and dance-floor fillers, "Drama queens" - named after the posthumously published novel by the Québec author Vickie Gendreau (who tragically died aged just 24) - was a dark and deeply personal, moving masterpiece that I still can't find the words that would do any justice to this song.

Stéphanie Lapointe "La fuite"

From Stéphanie's astonishing album "Les amours parallèles", here was a beautifully evocative and chanson that immediately transported the listener back to les années soixante, the timelessness of chanteuses such as François Hardy, France Gall, Jane Birkin and the iconic French pop of that era...

Catherine Valéry "La Peur"

From yet another graduate from the prodigious École Nationale de la Chanson de Granby, the opening piano notes and Catherine's crystalline vocals on "La Peur" drew you closer and closer... before an uplifting refrain and soaring chorus literally explode... From an EP that hinted at the talent prodigious talent of this artist.

Marion Élge "Je penche"

The stand-out track from an EP that was released thanks to crowd-funding, “Je Penche” was a cent-pour-cent chanson that steered effortlessly into the Bluesy-jazz territory that Zaz has made her own and more than suggested that this native of Valence could turn her hand to any number of differing musical styles.

Mathilde Forget "Les détours"

From an artist that I suspect to be hearing great things from in the future, Paris-based Mathilde's EP "Le sentiment et les forêts" presented a peerless quartet of songs. "Les détours" hit the listener with haunting melancholic synthesisers, breathless, echoed vocals... With added sparse reverbed guitar, the most gorgeous of choruses and an ephemeral piano coda to fade, it's not hard to see why favourable comparison with the prodigious Québécois talents of Chloé Lacasse and Salomé Leclerc are being made.   

Nadine Shah "Ville morose"

Another artist who also appeared in the Anglophone mix, Nadine has often been compared by music journalists to the likes of P J Harvey and Nick Cave. Re-recording "Dreary town" as "Vile morose", a brooding tale of a relationship unravelling amidst increasingly bitter recriminations, even Nadine was moved to comment that the French lyrics not only gave the song a a different flavour but that it sounds even better…

La Féline "Les fashionistes (au loin)"

From l'Album Francophone de l'Année. "Les fashionistes (au loin)" was the most wonderful example of synth-pop. The song's hypnotic beat and Agnès Gayraud's breathless vocals helped to create a compelling soundtrack for an increasingly disturbingly dystopian landscape.

Hôtel Morphée "Dernier jour"

Chanson Francophone de l'Année. As good a 4'01" of thumping alt-rock as was released all year. Add the band's trademark discordant strings and Laurence Newbornne's gorgeous rasping vocals... Look, I've blogged about this song enough times for you all to have surely gotten the picture?

Cover Star: Anna Karina and the famous dance scene (with Claude Brasseur and Sami Frey) from Jean-Luc Godard's 1964 film "Bande à Part."