Rockfort! The Best French Music of 2024

Just as I was wondering how to round of the year with this column – I made the mistake of cramming big stuff like the French elections and the Paris Olympic Games into the previous one – I put on tQ’s Low Culture podcast, in which editors Luke Turner and John Doran opened by discussing the mighty hurdy-gurdy, bass and drums trio France. Of course, it had to be France! The last time I wrote about them was back in 2021 so I don’t think it’s too soon for another appraisal.

France were in the UK for their first-ever tour here. In addition to dates in Bristol and Todmorden they played two shows in London – one an official date at Rich Mix in Shoreditch and the other, a more discreet performance-cum-recording session, in the live room of distributor and label The state51 Conspiracy.

For those who don’t know yet, a France show – and indeed a France release – features the band ploughing a single furrow for as long as time allows (and sometimes longer): one rhythm on the drums with very occasional embellishment, a barely evolving one-or-two-note bassline and Yann Gourdon’s screeching, squalling, grinding hurdy-gurdy. Gourdon and bassist Jérémie Sauvage are the group’s mainstays, while they have had several drummers over the years. Currently the man with the sticks is Swiss drummer and percussionist Cyril Bondi, also of Cyril Cyril and La Tène. A week before the France shows, La Tène played their own time-warping show at Cafe OTO, also with Jérémie Sauvage on bass: another live highlight of 2024.

John and Luke saw France in different locations (John in Bristol, Luke at Rich Mix) and had rather contrasting reactions. I think anyone can relate to Luke’s experience of not being in quite the right frame of mind for a gig because of factors that are completely external to the performance; I’ve been there on numerous occasions, knowing that I should be enjoying the show, that I would be enjoying it if I was in a different headspace. And with France you really do need to be completely engaged for the duration. 

Not unrelated were Luke’s comments about the lack of theatricality at Rich Mix, partly because Yann and Jérémie were stationed on the floor in front of the stage, out of view for a lot of the audience. John’s theatrical comparison, to late-period Beckett – a drama of small but significant gestures in the sparsest of settings – is a great one, and I would add that the whole France concept (including the name) is a sort of grand, theatrical gesture in itself. But perhaps more than theatricality, it’s best to think of France in terms of rituality. (This, as much as the presence of a hurdy-gurdy, is where their connection with folk lies, harking back to music’s role as, in the words of theorist Jacques Attali, “an attribute of the sacrificial ceremony” and a channeler of “essential violence”.) A ritual is both a singular performance and a return of the same; to function, it also requires your full participation and belief. 

It’s worth picking up on comparisons with Sun O))) here (not coincidentally, France have supported Sun O))) on a French tour). I do think they are a great band, but I was just a little disappointed when I finally saw them live; with France I had already experienced the sensations I was told Sun O))) would induce. It feels like a slightly absurd thing to say but with Sun O))) there were too many changes, too much release, whereas France are simultaneously all tension and all flow. I also found Sun O))) to be a little too explicit, maybe even a bit panto, in their evocation of rituality (although only by comparison, and I do really like a bit of panto).

We did get a bit of rock & roll theatre at state51 where, if I recall correctly, Bondi played the lumbering ‘boom-boom-boom-chak’ beat. It was much easier to get a view of the trio and, over the course of the show, Yann proceeded to down a bottle of something that looked like gin but may have been pastis, reeling around the floor until he eventually yanked his cable from the amp socket. But at Rich Mix (where we got the boom-chak-boom-chak that you hear on the Occitanie album, in a bigger room and without that focal point, it was more about getting lost in the expanded aperture of now, in the star trails and ringing overtones. France absolutely engage the body – plenty of intense nodding and swaying was in evidence from the audience – but the spectacle is one for your mind, especially as you start to wonder how much of what you’re hearing is really there (a friend told me he was getting Spacemen 3 riffs, which made a lot of sense). Having seen them five times now, there’s a particular excitement that kicks in as the machine starts up, an almost-Pavlovian response to hearing the first groans from the hurdy-gurdy. It’s at that moment I know for sure that I’m ready and willing to take the ride again.In case there was any doubt, the Rich Mix show was undoubtedly my gig of the year (as has been the case for any previous years in which I’ve seen France live). That was an easy pick. Choosing my favourite albums of 2024, was considerably harder, and I’ve gnashed my teeth over the ones I haven’t found space for: Matthias Prual and co’s La Démesure Du Pas; L’Étrangleuse; Bleu Nuit; eat-girls; joaqm; InFinit’; Unglee Izi; NLF3; Triplego; Lise Barkas; Eiger Drums Propaganda; Violence Gratuite; Berrocal, Fenech & Epplay; Aquaserge; Delphine Dora; Félicia Atkinson… I recommend investigating all of these too if you haven’t already.

The Next Ten