sound of the suburbs

Top French music and cultural magazine les Inrockuptibles has been running a demo tape competition for the last three years that goes under the name of CQFD (an expression meaning what you should discover) for the last five years. The principle is very simple, send them a song and the journalists will listen to it, and choose 21 best tracks that are then pressed up for a cover mounted CD, and from then on it's the readers that decide by voting. This year the journalists got to tease their ears with 7 000 tapes! And the prize? A live concert broadcast on national station Le Mouv, studio time and who knows maybe fame? I'm going to share three songs from the CD with you, I am not going to pretend that they are the best as there were eight songs that grabbed my attention and these three just happen to be my favorites today and of course this may well not be the case tomorrow.

MONTGOMERY
They have a very English sounding name but despite this they sing in their native tongue.This five piece from Rennes, Northern France, offer 'Melody' a dreamy child like slice of low-fi indie pop that drags you in under it's spell from it's first bars. They claim to have Gainsbourg and Sinatra as grandparents, Nirvana and Radiohead as parents, Beck as their older brother and Surfjan Stevens as their sister! Sounds like quite some family! Check out their MySpace here.

CAPTAIN BRACKMARD
They claim to originate from a mix of the Brackmard Corporation, a gang a car thieves situated in Mexico and the greatest of superheros Captain America. They are non-political but do have the goal of replacing blue M&Ms with pink ones as this discrimination based on sex is unacceptable! In their own words their own brand of hip hop is out of date, decadent and happily mixes Eminem with the Beastie Boys. Their chosen track displays a finely tuned sense of humour for this contemporary concept over some lively and dancable beats, I'm sure they're the kind of band that warms up a cold hall. Their MySpace is here.

LA CANAILLE
This last offering is my personal favorite at the moment. Their name comes from canis, meaning dog, this was how the bourgeois described the poor in the 19th century it is also the title of a revolutionary song sung by workers. As we can assume from such cerebral thoughts this band has a message, this can be heard loud and clear on 'Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre' (Neither God Nor Master), a cry against the way religion is being used to hinder advancement. Musically it subtle mix of beats and ethnic instruments such as a bouzouki that makes this as original as their ideas are interesting. Their musical roots range from funk, rap, chanson, rock, reggae, african, arabic, blues to down and out dirty hard rock, if they keep on producing tracks like this with no musical compromise they deserve to go a long way. MySpace here.

What you have probably realised is that today's trio of songs are all in French two of which being rap, hip hop call it what you want, what I do find is that the French language is much better suited to this style of music that traditional rock. Anyway I wish the bands involved good luck and may the best band win!