Staff Reviews
Juniore - Magnifique
For newbies this album is a grand starting point»
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Classic sounding new French girl group - the result that this sisterhood produced is a dreamy kaleidoscope of sounds that Anna-Jean playfully labels "yéyé noir". As displayed on their UK debut album Magnifique, the Paris group also explore surf grooves, sunshine pop, sizzling psychedelia and garage rock. Whilst the music is buoyant, sleek and undeniably sexy in its skip and beat, it contains a lyrical depth that nestles deeper than the good times vibes of the sonics.
"A lot of our songs are about love - mostly breakups, walks of shame, bad surprises or, in other words, unhappy love affairs," says Jean. "I liked the idea of playing upbeat music to dark lyrics. There's something about the contrast, the irony of things, the paradox of feelings." For the album, Anna-Jean worked on most of the songs in her attic on an acoustic guitar, writing songs informed and inspired by everyone from Dario Argento to Francoise Hardy to Screamin' Jay Hawkins. She then took them to her band, consisting of Swanny Elzingre (drums), Laure Weisdorf (keyboards) and someone called the Thing on bass. Here the songs were brought to life through personality implants from the rest of the band. The end result is a French language record influenced by obscure horror films and unhappy love affairs that radiates a potent sense of vibrancy, endlessly entrapping the listener in its seamless melodies, immersive harmonies and unshakable grooves.description from www.roughtradde.com