Skip to main content

Nous Non Plus is a friend of faux

By

Sounds Like: The New Pornographers on a strict diet of baguette and escargo.

RIYL: Feist, France, Blonde Redhead, sewing, wearing tight red turtlenecks.

Personal Reaction: Ménagerie, the latest album from Francophonic popsters Nous Non Plus, which includes an homage to "Tuff Ghost" by Montreal's Unicorns (en Français, naturellement) will find a home in fans of indie pop (emphasis on "pop"), French new wave, and classic emo.

Though they sing in French, Nous Non Plus is from NYC and is composed of five Yankees plus one Swiss-German, lead singer Céline Dijon. Most of them were previously in the faux-French band Les Sans Culottes. In 2005, several members of Les Sans Culottes staged a coup d'état--a grand French tradition--and Nous Non Plus (literally translated to "us no more") was born.

All the blogs and reviews I've read about them tout the band as great purveyors of 60s French pop. However, they seem to ignore that French pop is clean and minimal. On more than one track, NNP crank the distortion and cue, full-brass, the horn section. The result pushes their sound beyond that genre and into one more akin to gypsy folk. Beirut does it better, and Firewater did it earlier. Oh, and "French Teacher" could be mistaken for the Bee Gees--just sayin'.

However, there are some winners on the album: "La Momie", "Toi et Moi", "Le Dandy", "Bollinger" (both of which nail 60s French pop), and the fantastic Unicorns cover "Fantôme Dur." And while the album cannot compete with the cohesiveness of recent releases by other, REAL Francophonic bands like Le Husky, a few tracks might come in handy when trying to woo a particular indie hipster chick. You know, the one who wears those fantastic knee-high socks.

Band :: Nous Non Plus

Album :: Ménagerie

Song :: Fantôme Dur (Tuff Ghost)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lucero Video for "Darken My Door"

By
Darken My Door from Lucero on Vimeo . It's good to see that a serious band doesn't have to take itself seriously. Even better when a band's fans don't take them too seriously. "Darken My Door" off of Lucero's latest album, 1372 Overton Park , is a song about losing stuff--girlfriend, money, dignity. In fact, a lot of Lucero's songs are like that, but I'm not getting into that now. I'm talking about the video, which has so much to love. Obviously, I love the fact director Alex Mecum has used a puppet as the protagonist. But it's what the puppet does that makes this video so much fun. Puppet eating chili dogs, puppet drinking whiskey, puppet giving blow jobs . . . Hell, there's even puppet vomit! It's ridiculous, yes, but also tragic. By the end of the video, if you don't feel a little sorry for the scruffy faced whore puppet, then you have no soul. Here's a little more about the videos for Lucero's new album: To promot...
Post a Comment
Read more

Okkervil River, Wellington, New Zealand :: Live Music Review

By
There are energetic drummers, and then there is Travis Nelson. Truly, he is 'Animal.' Okkervil River albums have so much personality, the songs themselves become characters: players, people in the guise of animals or gods (and who can tell the difference sometimes?). And like watching a melodrama, we are witness to emotions that heave and plummet with frightening force. The songs can be drunken youth: the rotund boots on their feet knocking wildly on every surface. Or they can be villainous and smart, full of smiles and wishing-you-well up to the second they thrust the dagger into your belly. Pitched, lust-crazed, calculated: that is one half of an Okkervil album. The other emotion is equally intense in its thick, slow agony: the eternity it takes to remove the knife, knowing you have it all to do over. And so it goes: soaring, drunk, angry, knife, stab, agony, pull-it-out-and-let's-do-it-again. At the San Fransisco Bathhouse in Wellington, New Zealand, on a crisp early a...
2 comments
Read more

Best Music of 2008 [Last.FM gobbles our scrobbles]

By
Internet radio / social network / music discover tool Last.FM has released its Best of 2008 list. There are going to be dozens of "best" lists coming out in the next few weeks, but this one should command your attention. The list is not based on radio play, and it is not based on best selling albums. It is based on the number of times we (that's the royal "we" in all it's regal garb) have played tracks from our iTunes, iPods, Songbirds, or any other player that allows scrobbling. It is based on what we wanted to hear. We pressed play. We made the playlists. The only fault I can find lies in the Top 10 Tracks, which basically MGMT and Colplay. But that's what you get with raw data. To me, the Artists list is the most compelling. You will find no Kanye West on this list; no Britney and no Janet. You will only find the artists played incessantly and obsessively.
3 comments
Read more