The 8th edition of the Pitchfork Music Festival Paris offers an opportunity to listen in 3 evenings to the most honest artists. But it also wants to build bridges, and all trends are represented.
At the 2017 Pitchfork Festival Paris (Credits Piotr Grudzinski)
Thursday, November 1
This day will certainly be that of celebrities: hexagonal, with Etienne Daho who is currently offering himself a national jubilee, between his exhibition at the Philharmonie and his passage to many festivals, a recognition of his touch in French pop that spectators will come to appreciate on this Day of the Dead, but he does not want to be. Julian Casablanca is also not someone who wants to see his career buried since the breakup of his first and mythical rock band The Strokes years ago (tied with the Whites Stripes for the status of "last rock band"). Pitchfork will see the performance of his side band The Voidz, a formation where he lets go and coasts around, mocking the styles and instruments that can surround him. Celebrity, sequel, with Mac DeMarco, and his music of malice and poetry, without taking himself seriously either. Less famous but nevertheless talented, we will stop in front of the stage of the Australian Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, signed by the legendary label Sub Pop (Nirvana, it was them), who will take the torch of US rock (in fact, Australian, but hey). The funky Californian Cola Boyy will also be present, with its retro and sometimes psychedelic atmosphere, breathing the good disco life.
Also with: John Maus, Yellow Days, G Flip
Friday, November 2
No more All Saints' Day, this Friday is the Day of the Living, the beginning of the weekend, let's celebrate them. CHVRCHES and its invigorating pop singer Lauren Mayberry, who will brighten us up with her easy going compositions, which is to better ventilate the ears for an atmosphere nevertheless tinged with melancholy ("Love is Dead" that is called their last album, anyway). Passion and she is alive and well at Devonté Hynes aka Blood Orange, who after his folk acoustic interlude of his Lightspeed Champion project, operates this time his soul and hip hop turn, not without modesty.Pieces above the current diktats, playing with his featuring, jubilant without forcing. Blood Orange has taste. Taste, certainly, but much sweeter, with Chromeo, which will delight the youngest as well as the youngest… of spirit, that the extroverted duo will delight with its pop atmospheres. If you are a fan of lightness, this Friday will you go like a glove, since there is the Parisian band Bagarre, this cheerful mix of retro techno, genres and lyrics to the pif (paf), as long as it stuffs the pif, it passes. But what excitement: it's time to "nap for hours and get lots of kisses", dixit Lewis OfMan, just twenty, also a producer, who, apart from these lyrics full of love, also knows how to revitalize electro in the broadest sense. He goes in the grooves of Polo & Pan, Hypnolove, with scents of Flavien Berger of Kid Francescoli in it.
Also with Kaytranada, Car Seat Headrest, Dream Wife, Boy Pablo.
Saturday, November 3
After a Friday of fury, it's time for a soft landing: Bon Iver and his musical pursuit that reaches new shores. Where the beginning of his career was made of whispering and rubbing delicate strings, here we have puffs of brass and vocoders without code, incarnated. The must of the festival! Daniel Avery offers a visual show where we will hear his music from the English layers of techno. With flavors with extracts of Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Autechre and sound roars of all kinds. Genre, it is hardly a question at Uknown Mortal Orchestra, talk rather about state of mind. No constraints, just a singer inhabited by a strange and throbbing funk psyche, surrounded by electric sitar, all tinted with brass, more free than jazz. Finally, and to finish making this Saturday potentially perfect, we have DJ Koze, a German DJ who started before the fall of the Berlin Wall, now at Kompact, who signs after 30 years of career a splendid "Knock Knock", both thumbing his nose and tribute to electro. The set seems promising, listening to this sound elasticity, this surprise at the end of the beat, these liberating setbacks that break house music, to constantly refound it. Again, Pitchfork is where you have to go.
Also starring Jeremy Underground, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Peggy Gou, Avalon Emerson, Muddy Monk, Snail Mail, Michael Rault
At the Grande Halle de la Villette (Paris), from 1 to 3 November. Online ticketing
