Paris With a Parisian

La Femme surfin’ on the Seine !

Of all the crazy unexpected things that could come from France, La Femme’s electro-surf rock is probably the most surprising.

They’re young. They’re French. They come from Paris (the attitude), from Biarritz (the surfing spot), from Brittany (the crêpes… ahem.) They rock. And everybody’s wondering who they are.

That sound rings a bell. Several bells in fact. First, Surf rock, which is this musical style that seems to be unknown but in fact is all over, from the Beach Boys to the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. One of course might think that surfin’ is only under the tropical sun, in Hawaï, California or Australia… Well pas du tout. There is a huge surfin’ scene under the rain in the French southwest, where giant grey waves take sexy pale surfers further in the grey horizon. Lacanau, Hossegor, or Biarritz are the surfing capitals of Europe, and no surfer can claim its status before having ridden la vague. The wave that echoes in the music of La Femme.

And wave it is, as hints of electronica as well as new wave – they easily quote Taxi Girl, the French new wave band, as an influence, are to be found throughout their album « Psycho Tropical Berlin ».

A lot of surf rock moods, especially with « antitaxi », an ode against French cab drivers that I listen to every night when I force myself to take the bus instead of being racketted by a crazy taxi. Sur la Planche is the perfect surf anthem talking about sensations on the board… La femme (the song) brings out a tropical femme fatale, something between Yma Sumac and Greta Garbo…

It would be too long to detail all the songs, but they all have their own flavor, and they’re all in French, which is a great thing at a time where bands turn to English in order to globalize their chances of success.

And success is there for La Femme…

 

Listen to “Sur la Planche”: Sur la Planche