Tag: Rennes France

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: VERTÈBRE Shares Goth-like “T’as Du Voulour La Mort”

Ron Kring is a Rennes, France-based singer/songwriter and creative mastermind behind the emerging French electro rock/cold wave recording project VERTÈBRE. With collaborator and producer Zach Spectre, King released VERTÈBRE’s 2020 self-titled, full-length debut, which she quickly followed up with standalone single “Hungry” and a remix of “Last trip, baby.”

During pandemic-enforced lockdown, Kring experimented with video directing and editing and released a handful of music videos on YouTube. By 2021, the Rennes-based singer/songwriter had began writing what would be her sophomore album. She enlisted She-Wolf‘s Marie-Claude Martine to mix the album and her friend, Ivan Muńoz, an acclaimed Chilean electronic music artist and DJ best known as Vigilante to master the album. Much like her previously released material, the writing process begins with synth sounds that presses particular emotional buttons. She then goes on to build the framework of a song to release the energy within. Then she adds guitar and bass when the song calls for it. “VERTÈBRE is more in the cold wave/post punk genre. Some tracks are rather danceable and can sound electro pop rock. Others would be more dark wave. In any case, I think that a good dose of unease and anger remains present even when the song tries to defend itself against it. I like that the songs are never completely happy or completely sad. It must be said that in life nothing is ever gained but… that all is not lost either,” Ron Kring says.

The sophomore album’s first three singles “Basic instincts,” “I Can’t You Can,” and “Maniac Mansion” were released through the digital stream platforms and feature homemade accompanying videos.

At the end of last year, Kring decided to continue VERTÈBRE without Zach Spectre. She recruits bassist Julien Marien, and along with a guitarist, they’re currently working on their live show. But in the meantime, the sophomore album’s fourth and latest single “T’as dû couloir la mort,” is a goth-like take on post punk built around tweeter and woofer rattling 808s that would make Rick Rubin proud, glistening synth oscillations, Kring’s forceful delivery paired with arena rock level bombast. The end result is a song that sonically seems to mesh Depeche Mode and Ministry.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: JOVM Mainstays LohArano Performs “Mangina” at Le Club Rodez

Antananarivo, Madagascar-based JOVM mainstays LohArano — Mahalia Ravoajanahary (vocals, guitar), Michael Raveloson (bass, vocals) and Natiana Randrianasoloson (drums, vocals) — formed over seven years ago. And since their formation they’ve developed a unique, boundary pushing sound that sees the band pairing elements of popular and beloved Malagasy musical styles like Tsapiky  and Salegy with heavy metal. 

LohArano’s sound and approach represents a bold generation of Malagasy young people that honors and respects the traditions and practices of their elders – but are also inspired by contemporary Western genres and styles.

Over the past few years, the Malagasy metal trio have been extremely busy:

  • Their self-titled EP featured “Tandrroka,” a mosh pit friendly ripper, featuring rumbling, down-tuned bass lines, thunderous drumming, scorching guitar riffs and Ravoajanahary’s feral Karen O-like vocals. 

  • They quickly followed up with their full-length debut LohAmboto, which featured the System of a Down-like album title track “LohAmboto,” another mosh-pit friendly ripper that saw the band gently refining and honing their sound.

  • The JOVM mainstays closed out last year with their first European tour — and it included a set at  Trans Musicales in Rennes, France, which the band filmed and released as a concert film. The concert film features their debut single Andrambavitany,” the aforementioned “Tandrroka” and “LohAmboto,” as well as material off their full-length debut performed with a feral intensity. 

  • This year, the Malagasy JOVM mainstays along with their label Libertalia Music released a five-song live EP recorded from their Trans Musicales set last year. The EP featured “Ts’Izy,” an explosive synthesis of metal, nu-metal and hip-hop that channeled Rage Against the Machine — but while being decidedly African.

During the band’s headlining European tour last year, the band stopped at Rodez, France-based Le Club Rodez, where they filmed live footage of the band performing “Mangina,” an expansive song centered around alternating quiet and loud sections. The quiet, dream-like sections featuring glistening guitars and Ravoajanahary’s plaintive delivery. The loud sections sees the band at their furious, mosh pit friendly ripping best. Structurally and sonically, “Mangina” sees the trio pairing shoegazer-influenced textures with Metallica-meets-punk rock riffage.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: French-born, Danish-based Andrew Celestine Shares Brooding “Shattered”

Andrew Celestine is an emerging Rennes, France-born, Copenhagen-based singer/songwriter and musician. The Rennes-born Celestine relocated to Copenhagen back in 2015, where he began to pursue music full-time.

Celestine’s debut EP Shattered is the result of a two year journey for the self-taught French-born, Danish-based artist, with the EP’s five songs thematically being an open-hearted invitation into the melancholic, harrowing and at times universe of its creator. Sonically, the material is influenced by Depeche Mode, Moderat, French touch and Scandipop among others.

EP title track “Shattered” is a slickly produced, brooding, Depeche Mode-like track centered around glistening synth arpeggios, thumping beats and Celestine’s sonorous yet vulnerable baritone within an expansive yet dance floor friendly song structure. The song explores heartbreak and its devastation in a way that’s intimate, unvarnished and deeply familiar.

Filmed by Rine Rodin and edited by Celestine and Rodin, the video for “Shattered” follows a young woman — My Marie Nilsson — sneaking out of the spare bedroom and apartment of a lover, through the gray streets of an extremely Northern European industrial area, and into a creepy forest as the sun goes down.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Clintiss Performs “Toreador” at Studio Flagrant

Clintiss is Rennes, France-born, Montreal-based composer, pianist and singer/songwriter. He relocated to Montreal in 2012, where he started his career in earnest with stints in Charlie Dahl and the Royal Big Band and MoooN — and in both acts, the French-born, Canadian-based artist was the primary songwriting and frontperson.

Since then Clintiss has spent hundreds of hours at the piano, seeking the musical language that could reconcile and synthesize his classical training and his love of contemporary, popular music — i.e., indie rock, post rock and neoclassical, among others. “For me,” Clintiss explains, “composing a piano solo piece is the fruit of a long journey and a lot of hard work… My personal challenge was to create a piano language that I couldn’t manage to find or hear anywhere else, a fusion between the demanding classical technique and the different musical repertoires that have influenced me over the years – classical, symphonic, pop, electronic music… I hope to have succeeded in developing something unique, sometimes a little peculiar, straddling several worlds.”

The French-born, Canadian-based artist’s full-length debut Toreador was released last month. And interestingly, the 13 song album is informed by Clintiss’ own experiences straddling different cultures: The Rennes-born, Montreal-based pianist has spent about two-thirds of his life in Europe and about one-third of his life in Canada. Written and recorded over the course of the past two years, the album’s material evokes life over the past two years — a seemingly carefree and happier before, and the isolation and uncertainty of pandemic-related quarantines and lockdowns. But each composition also manages an opportunity to escape for a little bit, at least.

The French pianist, recently did a live session at Paris‘ Studio Flagrant, where he performed material off his full-length debut, including the breathtakingly beautiful album title track “Toreador.” Centered around playing that’s simultaneously delicate yet forceful, “Toreador” is a twisting and turning composition that evokes — for me, at least — brisk winter afternoons wandering in the snow until the sun sets, and looking forward to warming your cold bones.