Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Plastiscines

I heard this and I liked it.

I don't really know anything about the band, except what I found on Wikipedia.

Plastiscines are Katty Besnard (singer/guitar), Marine Neuilly (guitar), Louise Basilien (bass), Anoushka Vandevyvere(also know as Anais) (drums) and former drummers Caroline and Zazie Tavitian.

They formed in 2004 after Besnard, Neuilly, and Tavitian, all of whom were at school together in Saint-Cyr-l'École, met Basilien, originally a harpist, at a concert by the English band, the Libertines. Their talent was recognised early on by Maxime Schmitt, producer of the German band Kraftwerk, and they were signed by EMI for the Virgin France label in October 2006. In addition to the Libertines, the band's influences include the White Stripes, the Strokes and, from an earlier generation, the Kinks and Blondie. Their name derives from the phrase, "plasticine porters with looking glass ties" in the Beatles' song, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", on the 1967 album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Plastiscines have been critical of French retailing of rock music. Louise Basilien has remarked that she learnt about rock 'n' roll through her parents, the Internet, and by reading books: "the generation before us could not learn about rock 'n' roll because the stores here were rubbish". As a consequence, the French rock scene in 2006–07 was seen by many as fresh and exciting, even though the requirement that forty per cent of songs broadcast on radio in France should be in French continued to militate against bands who wished to perform in English (which, because of its American origins and British dominance in the 1960s, has always been the prime language of rock 'n' roll).

Plastiscines were featured on the Gossip Girl episode, "They Shoot Humphreys, Don't They?" at the Cotillion ball. Their single, "Barcelona" was also iTunes single of the week during the first week of January 2010. Their song "Bitch" was also featured on the same episode, and here it is;



So, what do people think?

3 comments:

Blimpy said...

I thought it was promising, though I like my retro-all-girl action a bit more like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KirAFfKGdlI

ShariVari said...

I saw them on Gossip Girl and thought the single was pretty good. I haven't really followed up with the rest of their stuff yet though. Might have to.

Chris said...

An honest opinion? A one-dimensional, retrograde, derivative, shampoo ad for moderne chicks. Or maybe the drumming-on-the-floor bit was a knowing nod to Les Triplettes de Belleville and it's being terribly ironic...

And has time passed so quickly that now people learn 'about rock 'n' roll through .... the Internet'?
I don't believe it!