Juniore

For my weekly listening pleasure I always catch-up with Sheila B's weekly podcast "Sophisticated Boom Boom." Each show is a tour de force of - as Sheila B herself describes the eclectic potpourri - "female-fronted pop from the past, present, and future; from all over the globe (there's a healthy mix of Yé-Yé and Chanson, UK and Japanese Beat-Pop...) And the occasional man." Last week's show featured the usual corker of a playlist, but my radar immediately 'pinged' as her record of the week from Parisian Indie meets Surf-Pop cum Psychedelic Sixties Yé-Yé band Juniore set my alarm bells ringing and I immediately sought out more...

Juniore are the project of singer-songwriter-composer (or as I'm moved to describe auteure-compositrice-interprète) Anna Jean, together with an ever expanding group of friends - Agnes (keyboards), Swanny (drums) Verena, Laurence (bass), Emilie, Julia - and producer Samy Osta, who repertoire also includes La Femme and Feu! Chatterton. (Actually Anna Jean and Samy go way back - forming the Indie-Folk duo Domingo who released an album "S-T" in 2008).

As a band, Juniore have been recording together for just under three years, releasing their debut single back in 2013. Their latest EP - and the reason for this post - "Marabout" was released back in January. The title track - Sheila B's record of the week - takes elements of Surf-Pop, adds a touch Sixties psychedelia and keys, borrows from the B52s' "Rock Lobster" to create a monochrome soundscape that is as much at home on the Rive Gauche as it is on the other side of la Manche in the swinging King's Road. You'd could also easily imagine the song cropping up on the soundtrack to a Quentin Tarantino movie as it builds over a repetitive beat that hooks and reels you in...


Thing is though is that it's the EP's opener "Mon autre" that hooked me from the off. With its piercing scream, echoed vocals that embed in the skull, more psychedelic keys, deadpan vocals and a trippy beat that is both dark and mysterious. If "Marabout" is the soundtrack to a Tarantino film, "Mon Autre" is B-Movie horror flick writ large.

There's a gorgeous reverbed guitar line that permeates throughout "Cavalier solitaire" which while it doesn't deviate from the girls well-rehearsed script (dark, moody - just a soupçon of menace - Yé-Yé on mogadon) confirms the hypnotic quality of the band's sound. There's a false ending before the song closes in a storm of swirling keys and percussion before the reverbed guitar has the last note.

So far we've had Tarantino and B-Movies (although with "Grindhouse" you've arguably both) but as the few reviews of Juniore I've found point out, "Je fais le mort" is just made for a Ennio Morricone soundtrack with it's languid guitars and haunting choirs;  a slow waltz across a deserted landscape... 


"A la plage" is another languid - dreamy - track. Arpeggio guitars and a gorgeously multi-tracked chorus with just a hint of reverb, effortlessly capture those lazy days at beach. The song's video - again reassuringly monochromatic - harks back to a more innocent time.


The EP closes with "Animal" and a song that is resplendent with sixties imagery; there's sublime harmonious choirs - all "Ooh la las" and "Ouuuuh aaaaaah", a welcome return of those psychedelic keys, not to mention a hint of Nancy Sinatra in a song that merrily barrels along.

The half-dozen songs that make up "Marabout" to these ears strike a near perfect balance between what Agnès Gayraud of La Féline's would suggest is "modern c'est déjà vieux" and a deliberate retro-sixties vibe, one that has been successfully exploited by amongst others, Le Pie. If you want to hear more - and frankly who doesn't? - the band will be releasing a album next month on Fullerton, CA's very own Burger Records. The album promises to offer a resume of the career to date alongside hopefully a few new tunes. I strongly suspect that a copy will find a welcoming home here. More importantly it may mean that I may get the chance to see Surf-Rock à la français played live in the home of Surf-Rock...

Juniore
"Marabout" (Bandcamp)