Françoiz Breut released the best Belgian record of the year
The eighth record of Françoiz Breut, a Brussels-based singer, is our favourite French-speaking record of the year so far.
I already wrote my record of the month column for the releases of April, it was the excellent political rock record from Swiss-based Cyril Cyril. But April was stacked! I’ll talk a little about the new record from Bonnie Banane at the end of this post, released on April 4th, but I mostly wanted to talk about my favorite French pop record of the year so far: the sublime Vif! [trad: Lively!] from Brussels-based singer Françoiz Breut.
Please note that, according to my RYM 2024 ranking list, Illion from Slift, our record of the month all the way back in January, is still above Vif! but Slift don’t sing in French. I’m talking here about the best album sung in French (but recorded in Belgium). A little housekeeping to justify this sidenote: Hope it’s clearer for my faithful readers.
A big thanks to Tristan Barber, Brussels finest stand-up comedian, for looking at my many grammar mistakes. Also: Bonne fête de la musique ! Happy Music Day! Summer’s solstice is traditionally the day France chose to celebrate music. Maybe I will tell the story of Jack Lang one day.
Frenchsplaining Françoiz Breut
Born in 1969 in Cherboug, a city full of umbrellas in Normandy, Françoiz moved to Nantes at the beginning of the nineties to become a graphic designer (after studying art in Caen), where she met Dominique A, her collaborator and boyfriend up until 1999.
I haven’t talked much about Dominique A on this newsletter even though he’s my absolute favorite non-dead French singer and I sure won’t start hijacking a post about a female singer to talk about her most famous ex-boyfriend. They moved to Brussels and had a fruitful collaboration for a solid decade: she sang extensively on his ‘93 and ‘95 albums and he wrote most of her first record, the eponymous and minimalistic Françoiz Breut, released in 1997. After the separation, he moved out of Brussels but she stayed there. They continued working together from time to time.
Her second album, Vingt à trente mille jours [trad: from 20 to 30 000 days] saw a dramatic increase in collaborators. Dominique A was still here of course but so was Philippe Katerine, Kat Onoma, Yann Tiersen and a lot more dudes from French indie bands The Little Rabbits or Autour de Lucie. Her second album, recorded with the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, was more ambitious and was the beginning of a critical and a moderate commercial success for Françoiz Breut.
Starting from this point, Françoiz Breut has been a mainstay of la nouvelle chanson française* (a recurring genre here that I will explain one day), releasing gorgeous records with regularity. Her third one, Une saison volée [trad: A stolen season] was one of the records my roommate Marine played all the time. In parallel, she kept working as a visual artist. I’m ashamed to say that I forgot to follow what she was doing, apart from the occasional song that I could hear on the radio. In 2016, she released Zoo, an album produced in Bristol by Adrian Utley from Portishead.
Her last record, Flux Flou de la Foule [Trad: blurred flow of the crowd] [the alliteration doesn’t work anymore once it’s translated] was the occasion for me to get reacquainted with her music. I was based in Brussels for a couple of years when she released her record in 2021 and was able to see her perform during the first post-pandemic Nuits du Botanique, a dainty little festival organized by one of the most renowned venues in Brussels. It’s a good record but her new one is even better.
It’s alive!
Vif! was once again recorded with her gang of Brussels-based expats, with whom she already recorded the previous one. No surprises if you are familiar with the singer's style: her eighth album is a crowning achievement to a long and faultless career. A record as soft as a bed of moss in a shady wood.
Vif ! belongs to the family of albums where the opening track is also the best. Hors sol [trad: Above ground] slowly begins with the quiet drums of Romeo Poirier to evolve in the space of five minutes into an extraordinary odyssey, with interstellar synths and incredibly sensual vocals.
The foundations are laid: the ambition is increased. The rest is in the same vein: mixing jazz influences, French chanson* and quirky compositions that would fit perfectly in a musical. The record was released by 62 Records, who describes this album as “organic” and I wouldn’t want to contradict the press release, since Françoiz talks quite a lot about flora and fauna.
Françoiz Breut also draws on the lexical field of the invisible and the infinitely small, as on Ectoplasme, sublimated by the bass of Francis Schulz and a maximum dose of Space Echo (a dub effect). The synths and organs of Marc Melia take a prominent place in the spatial atmosphere of the album, on Gazons et chatoiements [trad: Lawns and shimmers] which evokes Moon Safari from the Versailles band Air. Ode aux vers [trad: Ode to worms/verses] is also a formidable polysyllabic slowcore song.
The album ends perfectly with La tangente [trad: The tangent, but also slang for taking off], a superb eighties country ballad, closer to Waxahatchee than Kenny Rogers.
If you like this album you should listen to
Orval Carlos Sibelius - Territoires de l’inquiétude
Released last year, I already talked about it. I describe it as a retro sci-fi adventure, a pulpy space opera with tangy guitars, jumpy rhythms and vintage synths. It’s still holding up and it’s a slightly more excited version of what you can hear with Françoiz Breut.
Jokari - La Main Gauche
A one-woman band from Toulouse who released a beautiful little jewel called La Main Gauche [trad: the left hand] with cheap synths and quirky songs. A delight.
Jeanne Cherhal - L’eau
Like Vif !, L’eau [trad: The water] is an almost concept album from a quiet but excellent singer. Please come back, Jeanne.
Vincent Delerm - Les piqûres d’araignées
To be fair, any record from Vincent Delerm, godfather of la nouvelle chanson française, would work. Once collaborators on a soundtrack, Derlerm and Breut are sharing a lot of stylistic traits.
Bonnie Banane is a Weirdo
I coud also talk about the very good and extremely weird R&B/Pop record from Bonnie Banane: Nini is her second or third album (I don’t understand if her previous one is a whole different record or a just an appendix to her first one, Sexy Planet).
Actor and singer Bonnie Banane has quietly became someone you have to invite on your album. I already talked about her when she was featured on Chilly Gonzales’ last album but you probably encountered her with Flavien Berger or Hubert Lenoir. Nini is excellent, finally delivering a long-form album showcasing her strengths, mixing Brigitte Fontaine’s weird cadence with glorious R&B instrumentation. A good contender for French album of the year.
Next up: a rapper from Marseille!