Songs of the year, number 17: Christine and the Queens - People, I've been sad (Lyrics Video)

The release of the La Vita Nuova EP came as a welcome surprise in the early days of 2020, and its lead track, 'People, I've been sad' seemed to capture something of the moody melancholy of the day. Sad but sophisticated synth pop being very much the order of the day circa March. It's an elegantly understated piece of complex moody pop that feels both very of this year but also capable of enduring beyond 2020. 

Christine and the Queens - Girlfriend (Glastonbury 2019)

While it's not possible to watch Chris's full 2019 Glastonbury set over on YouTube, you can watch the live session she did for KEXP at Home during the Paris lockdown earlier this year. Watch it in full here.

Fantasy Festival number 17: The Lineup

Delilah Holliday: Skinny Girl Diet's Delilah, following a collaboration with Baxter Dury and Etienne de Crécy as BED, has recently embarked on a highly atmospheric psych flavoured solo career, with the excellent single 'Rise of the Phoenix'. The track, and any follow ups, could take her to some interesting places and she's proved over the years that there's more to this London punk grrrl than initially meets the eye. Not to be underestimated. You can find her on Bandcamp.

Gothic Tropic: Los Angeles resident Cecilia Della Peruti featured in 2017's Fantasy Festival lineup, fresh from releasing her debut album Fast or Feast. I saw her play at the Manchester leg of Dot to Dot that year, and it was love at first listen. Since Fast or Feast she's played as part of Beck's touring band, amongst other things. Her sound is indie rock infused with sunshine pop, reminiscent of Blondie on occasion and Tom Tom Club at other moments, but ultimately uncategorisable. You can find her on Bandcamp.

Stealing Sheep: Their folk roots behind them, Liverpools's Stealing Sheep initially flirted with psych then went full on pop for their most recent album, 2019's Big Wows. Theirs is a 60s psychadelia infused pop sound, often proving irresistible, generally bound to get folks onto the dancefloor. You can find out more here.

Kate Boy: Swedish/Australian synth pop duo, Kate Boy, are comprised of Kate Akhurst and Marcus Dextegen. They released their debut album in 2015, but have been a bit quiet of late. You can find out more on Insta.

Laura Mvula: Birmingham singer/songwriter Laura Mvula released two albums of soul flavoured pop, Sing to the Moon in 2013 and The Dreaming Room in 2016. Both sold well and received considerable critical acclaim, including nominations for the Mercury Music Prize.  Laura announced in 2017 that she had been dropped by her record label, Sony, and in the same year she composed the music for the RSC's production of Antony and Cleopatra. It's been a bit quiet since then, which is a real shame, but it's to be hoped that she is working on new material. She's not very active on Twitter, but there's no website, Bandcamp, Soundcloud or Insta, so it might be your best way to see what she's up to.

King Princess: Brooklyn singer, songwriter, musician and producer, and - it has been said repeatedly - queer icon in waiting, Mikaela Mullaney Straus released her debut album of impeccable pop, Cheap Queen, in 2019. It followed on from the touching but moody '1950' and pop melodrama of 'Talia', the first of which received a flurry of critical interest, the latter of which carved out a space for itself as the ultimate in gay heartbreak songs. You can find out more here.

Kali Uchis: Colombian singer Kali Uchis first came to to public attention in 2015 with her EP Por Vida. Early track 'Know What I Want' was suggestive of later period Amy Winehouse, albeit with a sunnier, reggaetron aspect to the sound. Her overall sound mixes sixties soul, R&B and doo wop with jazz as well as modern electro and R&B. Her debut LP, Isolation, was released in 2018 and was very well received. Similarly well received was her recorded in lockdown EP, To Feel Alive, which she released in April 2020. You can find out more here.

Santigold: Singer, songwriter and record producer Santi White has released three albums of impeccable left of centre electro pop and one equally successful mixtape of electro pop and reggaetron, The Gold Fire Sessions, which was released in 2018. Initially, her sound incorporated aspects of indie rock and samples from punk and post punk artists such as Siouxsie and the Banshees (whose 'Red Light' was sampled on 'My Superman'). She is often compared to MIA, both for her vocal style and the more agitated prop glitchy electro end of her work. You can find out more here.

Christine and the Queens: Nantes singer, songwriter, producer Chris was already a popstar in France before she released her debut English album, Chaleur Humaine, in 2016. A slice of elegant baroque electro pop, both she and it quickly won hearts and minds. 2018's follow up, Chris, with it's Chic-esque single 'Girlfriend' consolidated her reputation as an art pop genius. Since Chris was released, she has headlined the occasional festival, and during lockdown she released a new EP of songs, La vita nuova. Even greater triumphs are expected in the future. You can find out more here.

Christine And The Queens - iT LIVE HD (2016) Los Angeles El Rey Theatre

This is Christine And The Queens performing 'iT' live in LA in 2016. You can watch the whole We Love Green 2015 concert online.

Fantasy Festival #4: The Confidence Festival - Lineup

Katy Carr: Katy Carr is a London based singer/songwriter and multi instrumentalist with a sweet, powerful, commanding voice who draws on Polish history and traditional folk music to create music that can be both small and large in scale. Her album Polonia is out now and she will be appearing live at the Lexington in London on 1st October alongside Helen and The Horns and Honey Birch. 

Helen McCookerybook: Helen McCookerybook began her musical life as a punk bass player in Joby in the Hooligans in 1977, she was later a bass player in The Chefs and guitarist in Helen and The Horns. She returned to music making about ten years ago and has just released her latest solo album The Sea. She is currently touring and will be playing The Lexington on the 1st October as part of Helen and The Horns, alongside Katy Carr and Honey Birch. 

Pale Honey: Swedish duo Pale Honey are comprised of Tuva and Nelly. They have been a band for a couple of years now and have recently transitioned from noisy indie rock to a more glacial sound.  'Why do I always feel this way?' was a tense, epic and understated single, and their most recent release is a Pixies/Breeders esque rendition of ABBA's 'Lay All Your Love On Me'.

Basia Bulat: Basia Bulat is a Canadian singer/songwriter whose 2016 album Good Advice was one of Piccadilly Records picks of the year. I would liken her sound to a more indie sounding Adele, which sounds very odd given that Adele is signed to XL (an Indie Label). Basia is playing in Canada this summer.

Hollie Cook: Hollie Cook cut her musical teeth as a keyboard player in the final lineup of The Slits. She has since released two flawless albums of modern day lovers rock. Twice, the most recent of the two, was released in 2014.

Shonen Knife: Shonen Knife, the garage punk band from Osaka, have been around since the early 1990s. Feted by Kurt Cobain, the band have gone through a number of lineup changes but remain resolutely joyously the same.

MIA: The poster girl for modern day agit prop, rapper and provocateur MIA grew up in Sri Lanka and West London. Her unique take on agit prop has inspired a host of other artists, including Santigold and Noga Erez. Her most recent album, A.I.M is out now and she is currently touring. She will be playing the Boomtown Festival on the 13th August.

Christine And The Queens: Heloise Le Tissier, aka Christine and The Queens, created a splash in the UK in 2016 with her single 'Tilted', taken from her first English language album, Chaleur Humaine. A pop star in her native France, Le Tissier's androgynous image and proclaimed pansexuality marked her out as a breath of fresh air and the dramatic and sophisticated electro pop of Chaleur Humaine marked it as a classic.

Christine And The Queens -Tilted HD Live Graham Norton Show 17/06/2016

August 2016: Although Christine appeared on Graham Norton in June, I didn't see this clip until July, following a tip off by my friend Bethany, who had seen it when the show went out live and had been subsequently poleaxed by it.

By August, I'd heard 'Tilted' a few times on 6Music and it's highly infectious and seemingly effortless electro pop minimalism was inspiring all sorts of mad dancing in the kitchen and living room. Chaleur Humaine was the album of the year, a grower, and an enduring pop classic.

Chaleur Humaine

There are so many reasons to love Héloïse Letissier, aka Christine and the Queens... Let me count but some of the ways...

She has a glacial purity to her voice that is set off perfectly by her excellent dancing

She took French Elle to task for airbrushing her cover shot last year

She writes great, stylish, pop music with brains

Chaleur Humaine, an Anglo-French re-working of Letissier's 2014 French album of the same name, mixes endearingly glitchy electro with insanely catchy riffs & hooks and an understated pop intimacy that reflects her intelligence and creativity.

Opening track 'iT' is one of the angriest, yet danceable to, album openers I've ever heard. Talking about 'iT' to Dazed earlier this year, Letissier spoke of a sense of "wanting to have a dick just to have an easier life". She clarified this by adding:

Now I wouldn’t write “iT”. I’d rather stay a woman and fight, and try to control this male gaze by wearing unsexualised suits and speaking about my own desire without worrying about being desirable on someone else’s terms.  

The song reflects the sense of sexual fluidity that runs through Letissier's work in her persona of Christine, the name Christine and the Queens being a nod to the drag queens who looked after a fragile and heartbroken Letissier on a three week trip to London from her native France. She has variously described herself as bisexual and pansexual, but seems at pains to present a studied androgyny in her image as Christine. This is both intriguing and refreshing.

Sonically, the album ranges from the ferocity of 'iT' to the stripped down simplicity and poignancy of 'Night 52', via the almost Tom Tom Club esque 'Tilted' (think 'Genius of Love' rather than 'Wordy Rappinghood') and urban glitch of 'No Harm Is Done', a collaboration with Tunji Ige.

Despite parts of the album originally appearing in 2014, it feels like a very contemporary album, with a strong sense of urban unease reflected in it's conflicting sense of strength and fragility. Chaleur Humaine (which babel fish translates as 'Warmth') if there is any justice, should already be on it's way to becoming a modern pop classic (the album was released in the UK in March) and, I hope, a strong contender for album of the year.

Psychic Pop Moment

A funny thing happened in the staffroom...

Towards the tail end of a music based conversation, one of my friends turned to me and asked 'Do you watch Graham Norton?'

'No' I said, thinking this was going to be a conversation about TV, 'I don't have a telly, but I've seen it before, I get the gist of it'

'There's this French band that was on it...'

'Christine and The Queens?'

'And this song...'

'Tilted?'

'Yes! How did you know that?!!'

But I knew because I'd been dancing around the kitchen to it on Spotify last night while doing the washing up...

I've now YouTubed the clip from Graham Norton and, you are right Bethany, it is so good... And it's nice to see dance coming back into pop performance in a cool, imaginative way. Recently with Florence at Hyde Park, now with Christine And The Queens.

Other great French bands are available, of course, and I myself have been enjoying Owlle's album France this past year or two. That's definitely worth a listen. I shall most definitely be checking out the Christine and the Queens album very, very soon....