Rockfort! French Music for June, Reviewed by David McKenna

Ludu Du, which means black ashes in Breton, are a duo (Anna Duval Guennoc and Ivan Martin) from Dinéault in the Finistère department, Brittany’s Western frontier. Their repertoire is based on traditional songs from all over the region, but I think it’s unlikely that any of them have been performed quite like this before. The rawness of the recordings, with some sounding as though they were captured outdoors, communicates a sense of earthy authenticity, but the pair’s reimagining of the Breton repertoire is much more playfully surreal than it might seem at first, the apparent primitivism allied to a deceptive sophistication (check out Guennoc’s quick-lipped vocal prowess on ‘Gousperou Ar Raned’) and use of unconventional instrumentation, like the walkie talkies used to distort the vocals and generate feedback on ‘Klopenn’. This all becomes very clear in their live performances, where folk, improv and physical comedy combine seamlessly: one moment the pair are whipping each other with branches, the next they’re bashing out rhythms with their clogged feet, or hammers, bits of wood and metal scraps; during their New Trad Fest show, Guennoc starts twirling a fairly standard-sized cog rattle before Martin picks up another one that’s about ten times the size and swings it around his head. It’s both hilarious and alarming. But Ar Bambocherien is still well worth experiencing in its own right. Rather than handling them with kid gloves, Ludu Du demonstrate the resilience of these joyful, sad and strange songs by battering and twisting them into surprising new shapes. 

Having moved from Lyon to Bristol and then to London, violin and viola player Max has gradually become a fixture of the UK underground; a gifted improviser and prolific collaborator, she’s a member of Abstract Concrete (with Charles Hayward), UKAEA, Ondata Rossa and These Towns. Earlier work was heavily focused on amplified violin, a loop pedal and effects, but the palette has broadened over the years, leading to the beautifully sculpted, buoyant electronics of 2023’s Shadoww. La Touche Franche, which is both a play on French Touch and a nod to Max’s emotionally direct or ‘frank’ (franche) playing style, represents another musical shift. This time, in her base at New River Studios in North East London, she has pieced together an addictively succinct album that leans heavily on her own collection of recorded sounds (like the steel pans on ‘Bring It Back Together’), samples from library records – which give it a crunchy, rugged feel – and guest appearances from friends and collaborators: Shama Rhaman adds cascading sitar to ‘Bring It Back Together’, there’s tenor sax from Verity Susman dropped into the churning mix on ‘Multiverse Travellers’, the Squalll string trio (including Max herself) on ‘Echoes Of The First Light’ and Katarina Poklepovic from Italian duo So Beast (with whom Max first collaborated at Cafe OTO last year) alongside Julia Nutters on percussion for the swaying, spacey ‘Free And Hungry’. ‘The Last Frog’ might in part be a joke about Max’s nationality, but it’s also genuinely concerned with the plight of frogs (manipulated frog sounds feature, but none were harmed in the making of the record) and the fragility of our ecosystems, which can be thought of as both the environments that sustain these little creatures and the spaces where experimental musicians can thrive. La Touche Franche isa generous record, both emotionally and in the multi-dimensional sonic treats it delivers throughout. 

There’s not an awful lot of information out there about Aracoeli; her real name is Amélie Arcuri, she’s based in Lyon and is a member of duo Schmil Blick, and this is her debut solo album. Her elaborate pop is inspired as much by trip hop and folk as it is by Hindustani music, while the album is apparently focused on the theme of tarantism, the manic dancing originating in the south of Italy that is supposedly both induced by and cures the bite of the wolf spider. There’s little that’s frantic about Zagareddre though, which unfolds more like a languid fantasy. It’s music that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere: Arcuri sings in either English or Italian, and each track exists in its own richly ornamented bubble. ‘A Dream Within A Dream’ features a lolloping rhythm, strings and sparkling organ and is saved from excessive smoothness by dark chocolatey chords and scratching, scraping noises. ‘Contrary Winds’ is similarly lush with its ripples of cimbalom, springy percussion and a sweet melody that drifts into more mysterious territory. ‘Alpha Waves’ is nearer to the somnambulist territory of Leslie Winer or Madonna’s ‘Justify My Love’, while ‘La Mara’ pits tremulous strings against a gathering storm of roiling, hissing noise. The melodic assuredness combined with richly imaginative and intricate arrangements make for a hugely satisfying debut.

This is the most adventurous release yet from Lille’s Puce Moment, the duo of Pénélope Michel and Nico Devos (who also record as Cercueil). Originally produced for a stage show of the same name, a collaboration with dancer and choreographer Vania Vaneau, Sans Soleil finds Puce Moment absorbing the influence of gagaku, a type of Japanese classical music with origins in the imperial court. Travelling Japan’s ancient capital Nara in 2020, they spent time with the Gagaku Music Society of Tenri, in the city’s suburbs, recording elements that were then interwoven with fluttering electronic pads, thick bass drones, thudding kick drums, glitchy noise and, on ‘Bugaku’, wisps of Michel’s voice. The album appears to be sequenced like a ceremony; it ushers you in with just percussion and groaning bass, accumulating layers while retaining the feeling of space, of drifting through a vast, cavernous chamber. Gagaku uses percussion, string and wind instruments like the shō and the hichiriki, a double-reed flute; the latter supply the most emotive strains on Sans Soleil, enhanced by long, lingering tails of reverb and delay.  

Another duo/couple, O_U_T_R_E_N_O_I_R areDavid Fenech, who has previously featured in this column as a solo artist and as part of a trio with Jac Berrocal and Vincent Epplay, and Marie-Pierre Rixain (not to be confused with a centre-right French politician of the same name). United by, among other things, a love of heavy, industrial-leaning acts like Young Gods, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle and Einstürzende Neubauten, as well as Little Annie Anxiety and Siouxsie Sioux, their debut album on new label Hublotone features Rixain on vocals, percussion and field recordings while Fenech supplies atonal guitar noise, synths, samples and drums. Rixain’s intensely dispassionate speak-singing is mostly delivered in charmingly, heavily accented English, apart from the whispered French of closer ‘Des Soupirs En Pointillé’, but on ‘It Is You’, the vocals break down into effected shrieks and rhythmic ‘uh’’s that track the motorik rhythm. The latter is a compellingly skeletal take on krautrock – it’s mostly just drums, bass and voice – but elsewhere the songs plug into and revivify (if that’s the right word for such spectral music) the dub/post punk interface: ‘Toi En Moi’ is early PiL via The Bug while the drums on ‘Take’ are like ‘She’s Lost Control’ performed in an empty water tank. 

Megabasse is the name for the solo guitar peregrinations of Tanz Mein Herz and Omertà guitarist Pierre Bujeau. In fact, what you hear on Flamenca, which gathers three tracks that were previously only available on a very limited cassette release, is a double-necked guitar, plus two Fender amps and the sound of a room. As with close associates France, Megabasse is always the same, always different; in Bujeau’s case, he begins with a simple, delicately chiming arpeggio and then proceeds – usually for ten or more minutes – to allow the sound to drift, subtly shifting the rotating pattern until it seems almost to melt and fold in on itself. With this kind of approach, small changes become hugely significant, so a sudden, brief pause halfway through the 23 minute L’Ultimo Sacrifacio’ is almost a shock. I racked my brain for ages trying to figure out what ‘Marcia, Baila, Suogna’ reminded me of until I realised it’s like early Beach House song ‘Holy Dances’ if the drums and vocals were stripped away and the intro stretched out for ten minutes. The far shorter final track, ‘Suogna Piazzata’ is something a little different, admitting chord changes and moving closer to Omertà’s quieter instrumental passages and Jim O’Rourke’s American primitive-style moments, before tailing off dreamily.  

New music involving underground veteran Pierre Bastien is always a delight – in fact, it’s come to my attention that he has two albums two coming out at a similar time, with a Michel Banabila collaboration also on its way. Here, though, he’s teamed up with trumpet player Louis Laurain, who has worked with the likes of Stephen O’Malley, Éliane Radigue and Zombie Zombie, for this splendid release on which they both play the cornet, plus ‘various inventions’ from Bastien (a renowned inventor of experimental instruments who has his own mechanical orchestra) and percussion and birdcalls from Laurain. The cornet is supposedly the trumpet’s mellower cousin but it comes across as a feisty, almost cheeky instrument on these six tracks that were recorded while the pair were in residence at the Rose Hill studios in Brighton in 2023. ‘Sea & Tea’ (all the track titles play on the consonants in ‘cornet’) features a steady, scraping noise for a rhythm and all sort of quacking, squawking and blasts like train horns, ‘Serenity’ bobs along on a rhythm that feels like it’s come from West Africa, and ‘Sin Ti’ is a skronky rave-up. Joyously inventive. 

Leclerc was previously a member of Night Riders, who put out a couple of albums’ worth of hard-edged synth/techno-pop in the mid noughties – their second album Meta is well worth investigating. This, her second solo release, retains the analogue feel but has a warmer, fuzzier sound, all pattering drum machine beats, slinky basslines, marshmallow synths and, on the likes of ‘Drama’ and ‘La Chambre’ and ‘Comme Un Iceberg’, Leclerc’s nervy, Brigitte Fontaine-like vocals. These elegantly retro-futurist nearly-pop tracks are surrounded by atmospheric and slightly offbeat instrumentals like ‘Grand Fond’ with its tinkly, Depeche Mode-style melodies and lackadaisical bassline or ‘Tango Charlie’’s tipsy-Wally Badarou keys.