Category: Music

Jain is poised to be France’s next national treasure 

With two Number One albums in France, globe-trotting pop star Jain is poised to bring a funky brand of inclusivity to the rest of the world

With two Number One albums in France, globe-trotting pop star Jain is poised to bring a funky brand of inclusivity to the rest of the world

Earlier this year, Jain was the biggest thing in The Louvre. Well, we say in, but we mean on, really. Spread across the world famous art gallery’s Seine-side wing, a gigantic promotional poster of Jain hung triumphantly. It’s a more ingenious way to cover some of the temporary scaffolding for sure, but also acts as a statement of intent of just how strongly France feels about this particular pop star.

Her second album ‘Souldier’, released just over a month ago, landed in at Number One in the French album charts, just like her debut ‘Zanaka’ did in 2015. She’s spent the summer conquering the continental festival circuit and a gigantic world tour is in now motion. But being the biggest thing in The Louvre? Well, only the timeless icons know about that. “I could never imagine ever in my life that I’d be on the side of The Louvre,” she says. “I took a little selfie of me with it, of course.”

Zanaka’ may be the initial offering that shook the landscape of French pop, but ‘Souldier’ is the confirmation of just where 26-year-old is heading. Its brash in places, but mainly a deeply touching and inclusive selection of anthems. Take the song’s title track, for one, which was influenced by the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida back in 2016 – where 49 people were killed in the barbaric shooting in the gay nightclub by Omar Mateen. The song doesn’t dwell on the specifics of the horror, but rather the powerful response by the LGBTQ+ community across the world: “I saw men bringing flowers and putting them in front of the club, and it was really beautiful, so this song is a story of a soldier who is fighting with love.”

Jain – real name Jeanne Galice – sees a better world and very much trying to will it into existence. “I want to create this instant bubble of utopia. People can forget their everyday life and make them move,” she says. “I don’t think I’m overly optimistic in the way the world is going, especially when you look at the things that have happened over the past two or three years in Paris and England, especially.” But what exactly goes down in Jain’s Utopia? “I think it’s important to mix cultures in a time like this and to create a safe space.”

There is perhaps no-one better suited to create this inclusive fusion of sounds. Jain was born in the city of Toulouse in Southern France, but her father’s job resulted in several change of sceneries. Aged 9, she began her travels that would last nearly a decade taking in Dubai, The Republic of Congo and Abu Dhabi . “My favourite place was in The Congo. It’s where I began to write songs and build myself as an adult,” she says. “It’s hard when you’re a teenager, but at the same time I met a lot of new people and lived a lot of different lives.”

By the time she moved back to Paris aged 18, she packed a distinctly global sound. Swaying Afrobeats would collide with Arabic melodies for a truly intoxicating global cocktail, and her breakout single ‘Come’ proved to be a perfect alchemy of all these elements. Built on a simple acoustic riff, by the time Jain brings you to the chorus she’s promising “to show you the world”.

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Continue reading at NME: Jain is poised to be France’s next national treasure – NME

Jain declares war on growing global bigotry with new album 

French pop singer Jain is ready to march her new album Souldier across North America.

Q: The title track on Souldier was inspired by the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, FL, in 2016. Reviewers have touched upon the album being a response to the rampant rise of racist and fascist politics in modern Europe. Is it?

A: I started the music to Souldier when I was in the Congo, where the music being made was for dancing, and I wanted to keep that vibe in my own music but also to add a very European vibe and talk about what moves me — which is this really bad period we are in in Europe, the U.S., and what we must fight.

Q: Is it hard to keep the positive message of love and understanding moving through your work given those harsh realities of neo-Nazis being called good people, acts of terror, attacks on women’s rights and so on?

A: For me optimism is about keeping going, keeping fighting and feeling myself and my beliefs in my music, and hoping it affects others. My whole thing is mixing cultures, and today we aren’t doing that. Many want to close the doors and I want to open them. Songs like Inspecta — which is a mash-up creation based around the Inspector Gadget theme — help with that, too, because they make everybody smile.

Q: In Europe, you are well established and a big live concert draw. Here, you are back in small venues and working to bring people over to songs such as the electro-reggae Feel It or percussive love song Oh Man.

A: It’s really an interesting experience that I’m really grateful for, where we have a really good relation with Quebec and Canada and are starting from zero, mostly. I have to relearn my job, relearn how to move people, and reach those who are not from my own culture. Even with all the considerable talent you have in North America already, I think there can be a place for me,  too.

Q: You do most of your writing and recording, as well as your live shows, on your own. Are you are solo on this tour, too?

A: With a lot of machines along for the ride, as well as my voice and guitar. It’s like a mixture between a Jamaican sound system and a singer-songwriter with big beats getting dropped on top of me singing and playing to give the music much more depth. You get into it.

Q: Given the importance of equipment to your sound and your creative process, is there one thing you really couldn’t deliver the Jain experience without?

A: My computer. I do everything on it, always composing on the road and the plane, and without it I’m not producing. Pro Tools software and the enormous amount of percussion samples that are available to use with it are key to my sound development. I studied percussion, and can bring my ideas directly into the computer with some extra apps; pretty incredible, really.

Source: Jain declares war on growing global bigotry with new album | Vancouver Sun

The 5 albums to listen this week

The audacious Angèle has just unveiled her very first album, Brol . The lyrics are simple, sometimes naive, but the music is popular and shows a great melodic finesse, the kind that has no trouble staying in mind. In 12 titles, Angèle poetize love, addressing the theme of jealousy but also disappointments or hopes in love with Your Queen and The morning . Very active on social networks, whether to share her music or promote her upcoming releases, the singer of just 22 years has also made it one of the themes of this first album. In La Thune or Victim of Networks, she denounces the obsession of a society that spends its time to look behind a screen.And if in titles like La Flemme she speaks more lightly and simply of the desire to remain alone under her quilt, in Balance ton what  Angela sings much more committed lyrics, see feminist, to respond to the criticisms she faces [ . . . ]

Continue at LESINROCKS: LesInrocks – The 5 albums to listen this week

The last album of Miossec “The survivors”: a bubbling serenity

The Breton singer returns with his eleventh studio album “Les Rescapés”, released on September 28th. If Christophe Miossec has always been a little apart in the French song, it seems with this opus have found a certain serenity, but always with an inner urgency that pushes him to write and compose, again and again. A music he describes himself as “organic”.

At 54, Christophe Miossec already has a good career and a dozen albums to his credit. A singular writing, a rather minimalist music, and methods of recording and production close to the craft. On the sidelines of the majors, he built himself an atypical career and was able to hook a public, since become faithful. 
His last album “The survivors” (Columbia) released September 28, reflects both an assumed serenity and an internal revolt always present. 

The first song opens with a statement of urgency: “we are the survivors, we are the survivors” sings Miossec. The text echoes the current issues, be it climate change or migrants.

But the singer also describes it as a very personal song. Because he considers himself a miracle worker who has been able to continue to work, despite a sinuous path, off the beaten path.

An album recorded in trio over three distinct periods

“The survivors” was built from May 2017 to April 2018, in three distinct periods. 
Brest first with Mirabelle Gilis and Leander Lyons. Old-fashioned recording sessions with “pre-program” instruments: a piano, organ, mellotron, and an Elka branded Italian drum machine. Always this desire to remain “organic”, to propose a carnal music, with flower of skin. 
Then second stage at Badabing studio by Julien Delfaud where the songs are recorded live, with Mirabelle Gilis again, but also Laurent Bardainne and Sylvain Daniel. The pieces take shape with the added bass more present.
Finally, the Garage studio for the mixing phase with Dominique Ledudal. Miossec adds all the guitar parts, which he plays himself.

The singer from Brest considers this album as his most personal music since “Drinking” in 1995. Witness this other shock song, “the sea”, which, again, refers to the dramas of migrants. The clip shows us the innocence of two kids on a rubber boat, but that seems lacerated by bites: “The sea, when it bites, it’s mean”. 
This uncompromising and sharp writing sometimes gives way to more lightness (“The man”) and benevolence (“People”). 
The music is also more catchy on “I became” and manages to stay groovy even on the darker themes (“We die”, “The infidels”).

Source: The last album of Miossec “The survivors”: a bubbling serenity