Bashung, Kent & Zita Swoon

I don’t listen so much to French music or follow French singer-songwriters - consider Magma as a group coming from, let say, a unique place called Erewhon (nowhere!). These days, many people praised the new Alain Bashung record, Bleu Pétrole. They all agreed that this new release is a masterpiece. Knowing the work of this guy a little, I’m not surprise that they put him back on the top, the traditional music in France or Belgium or Switzerland is a little bit weak at the moment so artists like Bashung are always welcome with a new album.

Alain Bashung - Comme Un Lego .mp3 via Sous les pavés, la plage

This little foreword is just to introduce you to Kent and Zita Swoon, two excellent artists that I had the chance to discover recently. The first one is Kent Cokenstock. Kent is a multi-talented artist: singer-songwriter, writer and cartoonist. With L’homme de Mars (The Man From Mars), Kent, ex-punk leader of a group called Starshooter, created an opera-rock where he could put music to his comics or drawings to his compositions. The record is a concept album, a symphonic story in 17 chapters. No matter you understand French or not, you will enjoy this musical story filled with passion backed by a full orchestra with horns and violins. The best is to go to his MySpace, the only official possibility to get an idea of his work.

Web: kent.artistes.universalmusic.fr

Zita Swoon is a Belgian-based indie band (Antwerp). They sing in English and sometimes in French. This Tuesday (March 25) will see the release of Big Blueville an amazing album field with great songs. Zita Swoon exists since ten years now but long before in the beginning of the 90’s, the leader, Stef Kamil Carlens was one of the founding members of dEUS. After the first three successful CDs, he exited to focus on his side project Moondog Jr who soon became Zita Swoon… I like the way Stef Kamil Carlens dialogues with his two choristers, Kapinga and Eva Gysel, all along this album full of live. They talk about cities, women and family. Big Blueville is a very enjoyable album and I’m sure it will be at the end of 2008 on many critics’ top ten in Europe.

MySpace: myspace.com/zitaswoon