If you are curious about new releases in electronic, pop or rap music, discover our selection for June!
Electro:
Altitude by Trinix
Trinix is a duo of musicians and producers from Lyon, formed in 2012 by Josh Chergui and Loïs Serre. Six years after the Duo's creation, they had accumulated more than 100 million listens on streaming platforms. Their first official album, Mayday, was recorded in Los Angeles and released by Sony in 2018. For their latest project, the two young musicians from Vénissieux in the Rhône region wanted to fly solo. They produced their second album, Altitude, independently. Throughout this album, Trinix tell their listeners about the path they have taken and guide them on the one they're taking together through power, spontaneity, melancholy and the positive vibrations of their singles "Shimmy," "Easier" and "Waffle."
Destiino by Yuksek
In 2017, Yuksek (born Pierre-Alexandre Busson) was invited to participate in a unique experience: a residency at visual artist Xavier Veilhan's Studio Venezia. The installation, which is part of the 57th Venice Biennale, invited musicians to use his instruments to compose live in front of an audience. The Reims-born electronic producer returned from his Venetian sojourn with a desire to explore new sonic horizons, to break with conventional creative processes and to abandon himself to spontaneity by recording improvised pieces in one go on his armada of analog machines. Thus was born the Destiino project, a sort of tormented alter ego for Yuksek -- one that favors dark atmospheres, textures and feverish flights of melodic fantasy. But what came out of those experimental sessions (which took place both in Venice and in Busson's studio in Reims) almost never saw the light of day. The artist wasn't sure what to make of the unclassifiable tracks, which included both pieces too moody for dance-music labels and others too clubby for more experimental imprints. It was with "Lumière Noire," a label that defies classification, that the project found an open ear. The album can be seen as a synthesis of his different musical experiences: the opus also encompasses more experimental and lo-fi excursions, reminiscent of his recent scores for film, television and theater. Through invitations to dance and more introspective movements, the album remains melodic and psychedelic, making it a perfect soundtrack for a dance party.
Cyclorama by Polo & Pan
After nearly four consecutive years of sold-out tours, from the Olympia to Coachella, including a sold-out American tour, Polo & Pan's Cyclorama will have fervently travelled the most beautiful horizons on planet Earth. Nestled in a first album full of nuggets, which is scheduled for release on June 25, the already-out single Caravelle will be certified platinum in the export market and gold in France, consecrating Polo & Pan as the new ambassadors of the French Touch. With Cyclorama, the two explorers invite the listeners to a journey in time, through the stages of human existence. At the crossroads of ages and life trajectories, between the birth of a first child, blossoming love, confinements in the studio or in the family, Polo & Pan have decided to set to music the cycles that are woven in the background of our life paths. From the earliest to the latest milestones, Cyclorama offers a colorful score of the "comedy of life" that Celentano sang about, an existential theater playing out at every moment.
Rap:
Par amour et pour le geste by Smeels
Smeels defines himself as a hybrid rapper, without any particular style. No trap, no drill, no zumba, just Smeels. His creative process goes through the vibe -- a term that, according to him, best defines his music. Having always been oriented toward a sung rap, almost a form of R&B, the artist starts with a topline, or melody, that he hardly modifies when he adds in lyrics. This production mechanism of toplining explains the melodious nature of this mixtape. For this new project, the artist has once again decided to be his own artistic director. In Par amour et pour le geste, the rapper walks intimately on soaring and bewitching melodies.
Sérotonine by Joanna
After releasing her first EP Venus in early 2020, Joanna presents Sérotonine, her very first album. In this 14-track project, the musical poetess describes the movements of the soul that animate romantic relationships. Plural and bewitching, her universe unfolds and is not satisfied with any categorization. Accompanied by the beatmakers KCIV, Louis Dureau, Majeur Mineur, Skuna and Sutus, the singer-songwriter from Rennes formulates a musical proposal in her first opus. Sérotonine can be listened to chapter by chapter, as if one were following a romantic storyline. To the rhythm of the artist's flows and beats, whether electronic, pop, trap or R&B, the molecules jostle, the blood pumps and the hormone of happiness becomes ecstasy before fading gently. In this musical drama, Joanna invites the listener into a story where the song knows only one form, the one she gives it, and where the chorus of past loves becomes one voice, hers.
Mektoub by Di-Meh
Di-Meh, skater turned rapper, grew up between Morocco and Switzerland. It was with the Geneva-based MC collective 13 Sarkastick, of which he was a member from 2011 and 2016, that Di-Meh began rapping. With the Geneva-based independent label “Colors,” Di-Meh attracted attention in 2017; he released Focus vol.1 and participated in the thirty concerts of the Xtrem tour, sharing the stage with Makala and Slimka. 2019 was a decisive year for Di-Meh: two years after the release of vol.1, he followed with Focus vol.2, still with the label "Colors," and made a notable performance on the French social-media site Skyrock, in the legendary session of French rapper Lomepal for Planète Rap. That same year, he made the tour of the Zeniths and Bercy, opening for Lomepal at the first and French rapper Orelsan at the second. Finally, in 2019 he also released his mixtape Fake Love and was named "the revelation of the year" on the cover of Inrocks magazine. He then returned to the studios for two years of independent production work. Rigorous and consistent, Di-Meh has released a project every May 10 for 10 years. Naturally, then, Mektoub, his fourth album that features collaborations from Lefa, Vladimir Cauchemar and Klench Poko, was released on May 10 this year.
Pop:
Bye Bye Baby by Requin Chagrin
After the revelation that was her first album, Requin Chagrin (2015), and the confirmation that was her second, Sémaphore (2019), Marion Brunetto was confronted with the multitude of options that a third record can represent. Rather than defining the album quickly, she explored, over the course of months, various sounds, ideas and words, determined to help her listeners discover not only her melancholy and soaring sensations, but also her self-affirmation, underlined by frenzied drums. Her vision? To start from a dream pop and refine it with the reverbs of rock'n'roll and the echoes of the eighties; to satisfy a need for light; and, above all, to abandon herself to her addiction: the instrumental material. Begun shortly before quarantine and completed during a recording at the prestigious Brussels studios "ICP," at the end of summer 2020, Bye Bye Baby testifies to the interiority of an artist who wants to express how she interprets the world around her. In this latest album, Brunetto abandoned her cassette recorder for a tape recorder, a choice that influenced the composition of the tracks and presented as many constraints as it did possibilities.
Les Prières by Barbara Pravi
In 2015, Barbara Pravi cobbled together a video clip that she put on YouTube and that earned her the attention of Capitol Records. By January 2016, she was singing the credits of the film Heidi and being cast in a main role in the musical Un été 44. Since 2018, the author, composer and performer presents, every 8th of March, on International Women's Day, a different musical project echoing the feminist cause. Pravi, who represented France at Eurovision this May and won second place, also recently released a mini album of six tracks of "prières." With Les prières, the singer contemplates all that does not speak. With an azure voice, she invites the audience to find in that which does not last the grace of that which remains. Pravi sings of the freedom she carries when facing the eyes of the world.
Coeur by Clara Luciana
After her first album Sainte-Victoire, certified triple platinum, and two Victoires de la Musique awards (Stage Revelation in 2019 and Female Artist in 2020), Clara Luciani is back with Cœur, a new album with disco-modern colors. The funky and danceable first single from the album Le reste foreshadows this sunny and summery album. These 11 new songs, both danceable and intimate, will be available on June 11. Adept at duets, Clara Luciani covered “Summer Wine” by Nancy Sinatra in July 2020 with Alex Kapranos, singer from the band Franz Ferdinand, and, more recently, performed a beautiful acoustic version of “L'Île au lendemain” with Julien Doré, who will also appear on Coeur in the song “Sad & Slow.”
Pop-rock:
Feed the Moon by Yard of Blondes
Yard Of Blondes is a Los Angeles-based, French American group that was first noticed in 2013 by Rodney Bingenheimer, legendary KROQ DJ, and then made many appearances on national television in France. The group now presents their debut album, Feed The Moon. Feed The Moon derives influence from stoner rock, hard rock and alt rock with acts such as Queens Of The Stone Age, Muse, Placebo and, vocally, Nine Inch Nails, all playing key roles in shaping the band’s sound.
