Weekend Intermission – Redcar (Christine & the Queens) (France) – Je te vois enfin (I see you at last) (single/track from forthcoming album)

Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.

Christine & the Queens (or just Christine or Chris if you prefer) has popped up with another new persona, Redcar, along with a fresh set of pronouns.

Ok, fair enough but why he should wish to model himself on a working class resort town near Middlesbrough with a good view of what was the ICI Wilton chemical works, Dieu alone knows.

Anyway, he has announced the follow up full length to 2018’s ‘Chris’ and it will be titled ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles.’ This is a track from it. I have to be honest, I can’t think of anything about Redcar being adorable and you’ll be lucky to see les étoiles through the murky atmosphere, adorable or not. The Webb telescope probably couldn’t help you.

Joking apart, I’m not quite sure what to make of this song. My reminiscences of Christine & the Queens go back to the debut album, ‘Chaleur humaine’ in 2014, it’s charming ‘Tilted’ and ‘Saint Claude’, one of the best songs of its type (the defence of the non-conformist misfit – or not, as it turned out) you’ll ever hear and one that prompted her to label herself ‘Christine,’ and two live performances in 2017 and 2019 in which her stage energy was palpable.

What I will say in its favour – and it improves with every hearing – is that with the emphasis on bass, kick-bass drum, hi-hat and snare drum it sounds like she is trying to reinvent the 1960s French yé-yé style in a manner that would suit the Phoenix Club at Saltburn on a Saturday night. There are times when she even sounds like France Gall.

So many styles have been reinvented these past few years but not yé-yé as far as I know. Redcar might be onto something here.

‘Redcar les adorables étoiles’ is out on September 23rd via Because Music. ‘Je te vois enfin’ is out now.

He has also announced several September dates described as a “new musical production, an exclusive show in the name of poetry.” One of them is in the UK on 30^th September at the Royal Festival Hall in London. Sadly that seems to perpetuate the developing trend of ‘London only’ for visiting artists that I’ve previously identified with too many Scandinavian artists. I hope it changes, quickly.

Find Christine/Redcar on:

Website: https://www.christineandthequeens.com/