Friday's French music break - Faul & Wad Ad vs. Pnau, "Changes"

Friday's French music break this week is "Deep house".

Say what?

"A style of house music which fuses elements of Chicago house, jazz-funk, and Detroit techno." apparently, and whose "sonic qualities include slower beats per minute, fewer vocals, darker emotions, jazz-influences, and dissonant melodies."

Right well that's clear, if not a little...um...pompous.

And "Deep house" is reputedly the correct term to describe the music produced by French DJs Faul & Wad Ad as they "go up against" (versus) Pnau with "Changes".

Faul & Wad Ad (From Wikipedia - author Amolithis)

It's all in the art of "mixing" and "sampling" it seems, with Faul (Maxime - who seems to lack a surname) and Wad Ad (Camil Meyer) nabbing the "best bits" from the chorus of "Baby" by the Australian dance music duo Pnau and then doing their stuff in the studio.

The result?

A "Deep house" classic and an instant hit, variously described as a "beautiful dance monster" "with an irresistible warm vibe, impossible to stand still to" and which just calls out to us "to move and shake... with its tingling sax-riff that sits on a gorgeously structured beat.

Yes, clearly the song has not failed to prevent those apparently "in the know" from waxing lyrical without a hyperbolical care in the world.

Don't you just love music reviews?

Anyway, "Changes" might be familiar to some of you as it has been a commercial success in more than one sense of the word.

It has been a top 10 hit in more than a dozen European countries (including Germany and the United Kingdom) since its release in November 2013 and is still lingering at number 11 in the French charts.

And Mercedes decided to use it in the current TV campaign for its C Class.

Anyway, forget all those somewhat puffed-up critiques of the song and decide for yourselves.

Oh yes, and should you want to delve further into "Deep house" try checking out this link for more gobbledygook on the genre.

Take it away Faul & Wad Ad vs. Pnau (try saying with a straight face).

A French football fairy tale - Luzenac Ariège Pyrénées

It's a touching tale, guaranteed to warm the cockles of any football fan's heart and probably those who usually aren't in the least bit interested - the rise and rise of Luzenac Ariège Pyrénées, LAP (formerly Union Sportive de Luzenac).

Forget all that high profile Qatari cash bankrolling a horde of international stars at Paris Saint-Germain as they attempt (with a degree of success) to buy themselves trophies.

Ignore all those Russian rubles Dmitry Rybolovlev is pouring into AS Monaco in an effort to keep pace with the excesses at PSG.

The real heart of the so-called "beautiful game" in France is, for the moment, alive and kicking elsewhere.

Because in the best traditions of fictional UK comic team Melchester Rovers,  LAP have just won promotion to the French second division.




No mean feat for a team originally from a village with fewer than 700 inhabitants who don't have a stadium large enough for the big time rigours of the professional league and in 2010 were on the verge of bankruptcy.

LAP celebrate after securing promotion to Ligue 2 (screenshot i>Télé report)

Their financial fortunes changed in 2011 when they were saved by Toulouse-based businessman Jérôme Ducros the following year.

He called on 1998 World Cup winning international Fabien Barthez (also originally from the département of Ariège) to act as honorary president and later general director to give the club a more professional approach to recruitment of players and staff.

And under trainer Christophe Pélissier, who has been with the club for the past seven years, LAP have moved through the ranks of amateur and regional divisions to become the smallest team to make it to the Ligue 2.

"If you had told me when I started at the club that Luzenac would be playing in Ligue 2 seven years later, I would have laughed at you," he said in an interview.

"But that's exactly what has happened...even though we still have a few problems coming to terms with it."

LAP trainer Christophe Pélissier (screenshot from official website

Luzenac's recent 1-0 win over US Boulogne was enough to give them the necessary points to secure promotion.

But as something of a poignant reminder about how fickle football fortunes can be, it's perhaps worth remembering that just a few years ago, Boulogne were playing in Ligue 1 alongside the likes of PSG and Monaco.

 

How serious is François Hollande about (maybe) not standing for re-election in 2017?

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going," runs the cliché.

And if you just happen to be the French president, François Hollande, it provides an opportunity to throw in the proverbial towel a few years in advance - just in case.

Hollande's statement last week that he might not run for a second term in office in 2017 if he didn't succeed in lowering unemployment in France must have gasted a flabber or two because it was hardly a sentiment you would expect from someone holding the highest office in the land.

“If unemployment doesn’t improve between now and 2017, I have no reason to be candidate and no chance of being re-elected,” Hollande said during a visit to  Michelin's Ladoux research and development site just north of the company's headquarters in the town of Clermont-Ferrand.

And he added - just as he has for the past couple of years - that all the government's energy would be put into fighting unemployment because, "the challenge was the most important one the country faced."

François Hollande during a visit to Michelin (screenshot France 3 report)

Well at least Hollande was being consistent as it's a pledge the French have heard repeatedly ever since he took office in May 2012.

Every month, the (now former) employment minister, Michel Sapin, massaged and reinterpreted the figures to show that while unemployment was on the increase, the rate at which it was rising had slowed down - or so he wanted everyone to believe.

Doubtless, now that Sapin has been moved to the finance ministry, his successor François Rebsamen will (be forced to) do the same.

Meanwhile Hollande, who had promised an absolute decrease by the end of 2013, stuck his head in the sand in true ostrich style and continued repeating his Méthode Coué mantra that unemployment would drop before finally admitting (well he had little choice in the end) that he had failed to reach his objective in one year.

Clearly not one to learn from his mistakes, Hollande has now extended the deadline by another three years and all the time, once again staking his political future on the same objective.

So is it really time for the Socialist party to begin looking around for another potential candidate for 2017 allowing the political manœuvring to gather steam (not that politicians need much encouragement).

Is it simply Hollande blustering and preparing the country for another three years of rising unemployment?

Perhaps it's potential political suicide as some pundits have suggested, should Hollande not be able to pull it off.

Or maybe his apparent commitment is a courageous, but at the same time foolhardy, one.

It's probably anybody's guess - even among those who profess to understand how (French) politics works.

There again, Hollande's definition of what might eventually constitute a turnaround could remain as vague as much of his policy direction has during his (almost) two years in office.

One thing's for sure. Hollande's statement is hardly one which inspires confidence and it surely just adds weight to the belief by many, even within his party, that the cause for the bad showing in the recent local elections was not so much the former government's policies but...Hollande and his style of "non leadership".