Friday's French music break - Boulevard des Airs, "Y siguen pasando"

If you like a Spanish flavour to your music, then you'll  probably enjoy this week's Friday's French music break.

It's "Y siguen pasando", a track taken from "Les Appareuses Trompences, the most recent album (released in 2013) by Boulevard des Airs (or BDA for short).

(screenshot from YouTube video)

On their official site, the nine-piece band describe themselves as "an alternative rock group", although with such diverse self-declared influences as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and (inevitably perhaps) Manu Chao, their music is difficult to pigeon hole.

The lyric-driven tradition of the French "Chanson", reggae, ska, pop, rock and latin rhythm all figure in the group's assorted repertoire and they sing in French (of course) Spanish and English.

And the "group of mates", which includes brothers Florent and Jean-Noël Dasque, from the southwest of France aren't hard up for choice when it comes to mixing intrumentals into their music.

Accordion (don't groan) trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, piano, ukelele, guitar and drums all play their part and make those lives performances - and there have been plenty of them, because this is a group that thrives on the contact with its public - a real treat.

"We've more or less reached our goal, which was to be able to earn a living while making music," group member Sylvain Duthu said in a 2013 interview

"We've also had the chance to play a lot of concerts primarily in France and the reaction we've had from audiences acts as a spur for us to carry on."

The connection with the audience during concerts is probably the real strength of the group which formed in 2004: that and the fact that they all seem to be having a ruddy good time on stage (watch the second video which is a compilation of some of their live performances from 2013).

Little wonder then, that BDA were nominated in the category Group or Artist Stage Révélation of the Year in 2013 at Les Victoires de la Musique (losing out to multi-winners C2C).

BDA are currently in Madrid for a series of concerts but will be back in France, playing at a town near you, from the end of May.

http://bda-boulevarddesairs.com/dates-de-concerts-show-case/

Enough of the "Bla Bla" (incidentally, the title of their most recent single). Here's "Y siguen pasando" followed by that compilation of live performances from 2013.

Have a good weekend.