Pazar 2 Mar 2008, 11:42

So.

In the beginning we have Bérurier Noir, who form in early 1980's and in line with the French trend, utilize a drum machine instead of a real drummer for their music. (For some reason French have always been very keen to use drum machines in punk, if compared to other countries - I wonder why.)

By late 1980's BxN have become a huge band and quit while still being at the top.

The vocalist of BxN, François, goes on to form Molodoï who first play pretty straight-forward punk, and later bring new influences (tango, reggae, you name it) to their music. They split up somewhere in late 1990's. François also writes a travel book during the mid-90's.

Meanwhile the guitarist of BxN, Loran, experiments in Ze6 which effectively continues the minimalistic drum-machine backed sound of early Bérurier Noir. Ze6 was featured in a live split-cassette release with Molodoï, but didn't release any studio recordings. (According to some sources, the band split up while in studio. Eh.)

With François still in Molodoï, Loran goes on to found Tromatism with some friends. Tromatism continue with the drum machine, but mix all kind of strange ethnic stuff into their punk; digeridoo, drums, flutes.. Somewhere around late 1990's Tromatism quits.

Before the short reformation of Bérurier Noir and after the disintegration of Molodoï, François releases an album as François Béru et les Anges Déchus. The music in the album is pretty straight punk-influenced rock.

Around the same time Loran is apparently connected to Ethnopaire, who play pretty weird trancepunk.

And then we come to the point where BxN reforms for a few years, which prolly is enough recent to be of common knowledge.

After BxN has quit again, Loran joins his latest group, Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs who mix folk songs (and instruments) from Bretagne with punk (and a drum machine, again!) This group is proving to be rather interesting, there's a definite influence of Tromatism in it, and the bagpipe and flute make it sound almost like a more organic version of Ethnopaire. Their first album features two cover songs: Nomades (from Ze6, Tromatism and Bérurier Noir played this as well) and Vive le feu (from Bérurier Noir) - I guess it pretty much tells you where the new band is coming from..

As for the latest news of what François is up to, I have no idea… And furthermore, feel free to correct any possible errors in my short run-down.