All this week Alternative Airwaves is celebrating St. Jean Baptiste Day by showcasing artists from Quebec. It’ll all lead up to a podcast featuring some of these artists on Saturday.
Just a quick reminder before I get started – don’t forget to tune into CKCU FM (93.1 FM if you’re in Ottawa, http://www.ckcufm.com/ everywhere else) between 1pm and 2pm for Audio Sensory Resuscitation. You’ll hear some fun music plus my Weekly Airwave (which I did not have the time to properly record, but there is still a pick this week).
The first highlight this week is Alek et les Mauvaise Raisons. They’re an alternative / rock group out of Montreal, Québec. Actually, I think I’d probably call their music pop-punk, as there is a lot of both of those elements in their music. They currently have two albums up on Jamendo, and the one I listened to was Ma plante s’est jetée du troisième. I think that translates to “my plant was thrown from the third” – third floor maybe? I could be completely wrong here.
I’ll be perfectly honest – I wasn’t able to pick up on all of the lyrics, so I’m not entirely sure what they sing about (beyond the titles of the songs, which I do understand). However, I liked the music behind the lyrics, and that’s usually just as important (if not more so) to me.
Oh yes – if you haven’t yet inferred from that paragraph, these guys sing completely in French. I’m sure that if you are used to listening to French-language music, you’d have an easier time picking out the lyrics in the song – but to me, most of them just pass over my head. That’s unfortunate, but as I said – I think the music is good enough that the listening experience is not hampered by not understanding the lyrics.
Definitely worth the download – I say give them a chance! I particularly recommend “L’éclaircie” and “Le film”.
And as a book-end to this post, Jamendo.com has come out with its Jamendo Awards 2011. Basically, you vote for your favourite artist in 7 categories: Instrumental, Pop, Electro, Urban, World, Experimental, and Rock. Whoever wins that category gets $500! It’s pretty sweet, and if there are any bands you really like on Jamendo you should show your support by voting. You can vote once per day in each category; personally I’m throwing my votes specifically to Bella Ruse and Brad Sucks (in the Pop and Rock categories, respectively). The other ones I’m not sure about yet.
You can get more details over at Jamendo.com. Oh, and this round of voting goes until July 10th, followed by a second round of voting from July 11th to 15th.
Alternative Airwaves 