Founded back in 2010, Parisian psych pop act and longtime JOVM mainstays La Femme — currently, founding members Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée, along with Sam Lefévre, Noé Delmas, Cleémence Quélennec, Clara Luiciani, Jane Peynot, Marilou Chollet and Lucas Nunez Ritter — managed to hoodwink the French music industry by lining up a DIY Stateside tour as a then unknown band, with $3,000 Euros and their debut EP, that year’s Le Podium #1.
After playing 20 gigs across the States, the members of La Femme returned to their native France with immense interest from the Parisian music scene. “The industry was like, ‘What the fuck? They have an EP out and they are touring in the US and we don’t know them?” Marlon Magnée told The Guardian. “So the buzz began to start. When we came back to France, it was red carpet. Fucking DIY.”
2013’s critically applauded and commercially successful full-length debut Psycho Tropical Berlin found the Parisian JOVM mainstays making a wild, creative and sonic left turn incorporating krautrock and synths to their unique take on surf rock and psych pop. The album eventually earned a Victoires de la Musique Award.
Building upon a rapidly growing national and international profile, La Femme’s sophomore album, 2016’s Mystére to praise by Sound Opinions, The Line of Best Fit, The Guardian, AllMusic, BrooklynVegan and a lengthy list of others.
The French JOVM mainstays long-awaited, third album Paradigmes was released last year through the band’s own Disque Pointu and distributed through IDOL. And if you’ve been frequenting this site over the course of this year, you’d recall that it’s been a very busy on for the Paris-based outfit: In April, La Femme released Paradigmes: Le Film, a full-length film co-directed by the band’s Sacha Got and Marlon Magnée and Aymeric Bergada du Cadet that highlights the band’s humor and creativity while being primarily centered around Paradigmes‘ material. (You can watch it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Wnil2ipf0)
The also released an exclusive, vinyl Record Store Day edition of Paradigmes, Paradigmes: suppléments, a deluxe edition of their critically applauded third album. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Paradigmes, La Femme announced the release of a limited collection of NFTs made from the original frames used for the animated video for “Foutre le Bordel.” The NFTs were released by by Ballad(r), an NFT launchpad for artists and institutions in the music industry. These unique digital works of art included a unique audio track made from stems of the original song and unlocked exclusive content and numerous real-life perks for each lucky NFT holder.
During the JOVM mainstays’ time touring across Latin America and Spain, the band wrote their first song entirely in Spanish, “Le Jardin,” which appeared on the aforementioned Paradigmes. “Le Jardin” led the band down the path to write Teatro Lucido. Deriving its name from a mythic theater, where the band has played many times while touring in Mexico, the album, which is slated for a November 4, 2022 release will be their first album with lyrics written and sung entirely in Spanish. Teatro Lucido will also be the first of a planned thematic series of albums that the band calls Collection Odyssèe.
Teatro Lucido is informed by their adventures in Seville, Granada, Madrid, Mexico City, Cuautepec, Padul — all of which hold important places in their hearts, because they had a ton of laughs, joys, tears and disappointments in each. The album also reportedly draws from a number of different inspirations including Spain’s Semana Santa — or holy week; pasodoble, reggaeton, Brazilian and Andalusian rhythms, classical guitars and 80s Movida among others. Much like their previous releases, the members of French JOVM mainstays wrote, composed and produced the album entirely by themselves, while inviting numerous female vocalists to participate in the process.
Just before the JOVM mainstays last North American tour, La Femme shared “Sacatela,” a breezy, Tropicalia-like take on psych pop centered around an infectious, call-and-response vocal-led hook, snuggling Latin rhythms and lyrics sung entirely in Spanish.
The album’s second and latest single “Y Tu Te Vas” is centered around cinematic, flamenco-inspired guitars and a tweeter and woofer rocking reggaeton beat that might bring Rosalía, Bad Bunny, and others to mind. The song features a sultry, Shakira-like turn from Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter Tatiana Hazel.
“Tatiana is an artist living in Los Angeles where I recorded the track in 2019,” La Femme’s Marlon Magnée says of their collaboration. ‘Y Tu Te Vas’ is one of the more powerful tracks voice-wise on the album. Tatiana brings the track to another dimension, she really is one of the new artists to follow on the American scene.”
Directed by JF Julian and the members of La Femme, the accompanying video for “Y Tu Te Vas” continues a remarkable run of gorgeous, cinematically shot visuals that display their unique sense of style and fashion, along with their eccentric and deliriously campy sense of humor. Fittingly, the new videos is full of creepy season motifs — we see Tatiana Hazel dressed as though she were in mourning in a dense fog-filled forest; Hazel with two flamenco styled guitarists sitting in front of a roaring fireplace and so on.
