Since its dazzling debut, JE T'AIME has been a comet of melancholy dances, Mancunian rain and colourful synths. For the cold wave trio, a party that stops means the return of ghosts and anguish. You've got to dance, you've got to move at full speed to avoid being caught up, a fatalistic state of mind perfectly captured on their new album, Useless Boy (review). To celebrate its release, the band played at Point Éphémère, the start of a major tour that will see them on a wild goose chase alongside Denuit.
DENUIT
French audience is slowly realising that Denuit are the most engaging duo on the French dark scene. With their frequent releases (an average of one album a year) and appearances on compilations and remixes, Lis and Ivi are well worth seeing live. Denuit is first and foremost a dark universe blending horrific and gothic influences, and a music that borrows as much from the past and the present, with post-punk, pop and darksynth influences (you might think of Perturbator, Boy Harsher or Siouxsie).
On stage, illuminated by the eye that serves as its logo, Denuit attacked with an unreleased track, Chaos: a new album is approaching and the Parisian audience had the privilege of hearing several new tracks played for the first time. Lis pierced the darkness with hes torches and the Point Éphémère was transformed into a haunted house during the theatrical Nott and Fear, with their lamentations from beyond the grave. Meanwhile, Skeletons shook up the audience with its aggression... Denuit alternate rhythmic assaults with moments of poetry (regularly reminiscent of another French duo, Potochkine)... But above all, Denuit know how to win over their audience with an attitude that illuminates their performance far more than their little lights. There's Lis's words between songs, encouraging, benevolent and full of humility, but also the obvious complicity between her and Ivi. They exchange smiles and little gestures, they play with their torches: the way they complement each other and the pleasure they take in giving us this set is obvious. Ghosts, yes, but the friendliest ghosts you know! With Denuit, the darkness is a cosy, welcoming cocoon in which to feel good. With such irresistible energy, they're bound to have some great things happen to them, so let's keep an eye on them. They're so adorable.
JE T'AIME
Well, in the end, JE T'AIME are also adorable in their own way. There's dBoy, singer and mourning soul, who breaks through the dense Point Éphémère crowd for an urgent wee just before taking to the stage. On bass, Crazy Z shows off with a smokeon his lips before exchanging big smiles with his accomplices. Then there's the new kid on the block, Little Bastard, who replaces Tall Bastard on guitar and who doesn't even seem to deserve a proper pseudonym of his own. Tragic-comic heroes, the trio give their all to put on a show and entertain their audience.
We'd like to thank them for wisely choosing to play Useless Boy's best tracks like Unbroken Sleep and its post-punk haunted by layers of futuristic synths, the very pop Nightcrawler and dBoy's acrobatic vocal performance, or the oppressive and chilling Silent Monsters. Shortly before the concert, the singer joked: "I'll never remember all the lyrics!". In the end, as the old and new songs mingled, it was more the setlist that he forgot: ‘the next song is called Blood on Fire’, he said before the trio started playing When Dreams Cease. And that's what JE T'AIME is all about, a touching spontaneity and a desire to share that leaves plenty of room for the unexpected. As JE T'AIME pirouettes around and around, you're often afraid it's going to fall apart, but the trio always land on their feet with astonishing grace. You can feel the experience of the three musicians, who have mastered their subject perfectly and know how to give their audience a good concert without forgetting the right dose of rock'n'roll.
The temperature rises, the clothes fall off and the old tracks resurface (Give me More Khol for feverish intensity, Marble Heroes for spleen). On stage, we're all facetious, we're all accomplices, we're all doing our little number. dBoy's expressive contortions give his performance a visceral, poignant power. At times, an almost industrial coldness hardens the tone (there's a touch of Nine Inch Nails in some of the keyboards, and we're not just saying that because of the tambourine). In its exuberance, JE T'AIME strikes just the right tone, the best reaction to the absurdities of life: cry and laugh at the same time, dance because you've got nothing better to do. We told you they were adorable too. As you watch this man roll around on the floor in a mixture of intimate exorcism and showmanship, you realise that behind the dark glasses, behind the playful and playful postures, there is a touching sincerity, a real urgency, a need to exchange and share, that makes this whole project particularly endearing. Yesterday we saw just how much the Parisian public had missed the band: paradoxically, the group played very little in the french capital... and as the concert came to end where JE T'AIME began with C++, Dance and The Sound, after such a night, it's hard to find any of these boys “ueseless”.
