Francois And The Atlas Mountains
Solide Mirage
Domino
HAVING started out on Scotland's Fence label while based in Bristol but now firmly established on London-based Domino, the Franco-Belgian fourpiece fronted by Francois Marry release their fourth studio album with a collection of songs sung entirely in French and with string sections scored by musical polymath (and sometime Arcade Fire collaborator) Owen Pallett.
The familiar ingredients of tender vocals, pattering drums and Afro-pop phrasings are all in place, making this feel on the surface like another slice of the same breezy, indie pop loaf Marry has been serving up for a while. But here and there are disruptions: as on Bête Morcelée, for instance, where Marry indulges his apparent (though well hidden so far) love of grunge in an angry, two minute, two chord squall of guitar. Or on album opener Grand Dérèglement, which deals with the migrant crisis and the displacement of peoples (it translates as “the great disturbance”). You'd have to have pretty good French to pick out the nuances of the lyrics, though a video in which Marry and a Palestinian dancer he met in a Brussels refugee shelter move through the city's iconic Palais de Justice give a pretty good idea where he's coming from.
Barry Didcock
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