In its tenth edition, the FrancoFaune festival, one of whose delicious slogans praises “musical biodiversity”, animates a multitude of small and large venues in the Belgian capital with a program aimed at entering the 21st century.e century French-speaking song. For the occasion, the event welcomed a large delegation of musicians and professionals from Quebec and the Canadian Francophonie, including the rapper Parazar, the Acadian Joey Robin Haché, Mat Vezio and the rock group Hippie Hourrah , which whipped, despite the threat of the extinction of the voice of singer Cédric Marinelli. The initiative revives the links between the Belgian and Quebec musical scenes, was able to measure The duty.
It was last Sunday evening, at the Maison Poem, headquarters of the festival organization, a nice little room hidden on a quiet street in the town of Saint-Gilles. Arriving from Montreal the day before, Marinelli was boiling over having lost his voice over the Atlantic: “We need you to give us some,” energy, he implored the audience. Come on, everyone stand up! Let’s dance! Deprived of the shock caused by the singer’s strident voice, Hippie Hourrah undoubtedly offered the most gently groovy concert of his career, without diluting its psychedelic flavor. The Belgians — and their Swiss and French colleagues — were won over.
The musical poster for this FrancoFaune Sunday was presented in collaboration with the Phoque OFF showcase festival, presented in parallel with the RIDEAU event in February, in lower town of Quebec. Its founder, Patrick Labbé, also head of the Folivora label, was on hand to discover the Belgian festival and seal this partnership with the Brussels co-directors. “The essence of Phoque OFF has always been to highlight this same musical diversity,” he says to underline the common motivation for the two events.
“For us,” continues Labbé, “the important thing is boldness and openness. We encourage growing talents — and they, at FrancoFaune, also recognize themselves in this approach. This collaboration was self-evident, it benefits the influence of the two festivals and sparks other initiatives between the Belgian and Quebec music scenes. As proof, M for Montreal, the Granby International Song Festival and the Petite-Vallée Song Festival were also represented in Brussels.
“We felt a strong affinity with the Phoque OFF,” says Céline Magain, co-director of FrancoFaune, invited by Labbé last February. This is the objective of these maneuvers aimed at attracting Belgians to Quebec and vice versa, “this circulation of artists,” adds Magain, “which allows the circulation of professionals in the field, who in turn allow the circulation of artists. It’s a virtuous circle on all levels; musical, human, which promotes collaborations. We said to ourselves that a partnership could revitalize exchanges with the Quebec music scene.”
His colleague co-director, Florent Le Duc, agrees: “When we talk about “musical biodiversity”, it’s not just a slogan to make people smile, it’s a political commitment. Above all, we say to ourselves: if we don’t put it on display, where else will we find this musical diversity? If we don’t do it, we’ll let the big industry groups decide what the public will see.”
“Emerging musical species”
Last Thursday on the Pianofabriek stage, singer-songwriter Témé Tan – Rapsat-Lelièvre record prize in 2018 – offered premieres of new songs from his second album, When he is alone, expected on November 10. It flowed from a living source, Témé Tan’s invigorating pop song, with its rhythms aligned with his Congolese musical heritage. The musician also presents rich collaborations with Elisapie and Pierre Kwenders. On stage, it was still summer stretching out, like in Brussels, hot and bright for a week.
The musician had invited on stage his friend Maïa Barouh who, the next day, offered a concert in front of an audience of industry professionals, including her Quebec turner and a representative of the RIDEAU event in Quebec who invited her to her next edition, in February 2024. The Franco-Japanese author, composer, flautist and performer also had to present her concert under the threat of losing her voice (definitely!), however giving a good overview of the material of her first album Aida, released last year by Saravah, the legendary record label founded by her late dad Pierre. In Japanese and French with electronic rhythms, Maïa’s song, this hypermodern and singular mix, is already a captivating promise.
The programs last Friday, at the Chez Pias room, near the Grand-Place, then on Saturday, at Atelier 210, in the commune of Etterbeek, presented us with two revelations from this 10e edition of FrancoFaune. First remember this name: Clair, French musician accompanied by a rock group distilling a song sometimes yé yé, sometimes vintage 1970, like vintage Véronique Sanson or France Gall hand in hand with Michel Berger, but with this contemporary statement of a slobbering girl who says things bluntly, always with that mischievous smile.
She twists the codes with choruses that are as catchy as they are sloppy, like “Under my little wool sweater / There’s a little heart that beats / But not for you”. She is presented as the protégé of Philippe Katerine, whose label published her first album, The magic house, published last spring. In concert, Clair (Claire Tillier) is the bomb — all bets are off: which Quebec festival will be the first to give her a stage? Let’s then highlight the assured performance of the young Belgian electro-pop duo Colt (singer Coline Debry and multi-instrumentalist Antoine Jorissen). Effective and in tune with the times, it will please fans of Charlotte Cardin or Milk&Bone. The Belgian public is already eating it up: on the strength of its radio successes (including Insomnia), Colt was crowned Group of the Year at the Octaves awards gala (the Belgian ADISQ gala).
One last revelation, savored last Monday evening at Theater 140 : Burn Dancing, a music-literary creation by the poet Lisette Lombé and the singer-songwriter Cloé Du Trèfle, who moves away from the more classic pop-rock songs that she has been practicing for around fifteen years to explore electronic music. Cloé plays keyboards and drum machines, her work serving as a backdrop for the feminist “electronic poem” that Lisette recites, in a tone more theatrical than slam, in the role of the character Remontada. At the end, the six hundred spectators gave a standing ovation, before joining the musicians on stage to dance to a techno groove. Let’s hope that a Quebec festival director will invite them to our place.
Philippe Renaud was at FrancoFaune at the invitation of Wallonie-Bruxelles Musiques.