Better Days: French House Special Part 1 (June 2023)

Probably everyone has their own story about what hearing Daft Punk’s “Da Funk” for the first time triggered in them. And how incredibly new the sound and sampling techniques of Thomas Bangalter’s “Trax On the Rocks” sounded when the record was released in 1995. The stamp “French House” was born, even though influential artists like Motorbass and St. Germain had already laid the foundations for sample-based French-style house in the years before.

It was the English music press that gave the movement its other name, French Touch, borrowed from the slogan of Laurent Garnier’s F Communications. Behind the sound stood a handful of small Paris labels: Roulé, founded by Thomas Bangalter in 1995, Crydamoure, which Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo started with Éric Chedeville in 1997 to release their own records as Le Knight Club, Yellow Productions run by Bob Sinclar and DJ Yellow, and Versatile, the label of Radio Nova programmer DJ Gilb’R, whose own track as Cheek, “Venus (Sunshine People)”, was one of its very first releases.

For me, French House was everything back then. As a youngster I soaked up every new release and can remember very clearly how I bought the first Roulé 12inches in Cologne’s Music Man Recordstore, the first Crydamoure, Fantom or Bob Sinclar 12inches in the Kompakt store and later in Groove Attack the first 12inches on labels I adored like Fiat Lux, Black Jack or Riviera. French House hardcore!

This first part brings many of those records back together: Le Knight Club with “Soul Bells” and “Gator”, Alan Braxe’s “Vertigo” on Roulé and his remix of Björk’s “Alarm Call” with Ben Diamond, Cassius with “Cassius 99”, Dimitri From Paris with “Just About Right” and of course Cheek’s “Venus”. Kif Recordings is represented twice: with Pépé Bradock’s “The Charter” and with “Atom Funk” by Trankilou, his duo with Ark, taken from the 1997 “Escalope De Dingue” EP and built on samples of The Undisputed Truth and Malcolm McLaren’s “Buffalo Gals”. The show closes with Ian Pooley’s “Chord Memory” in the Daft Punk mix.

I have always let my love for French House flow in some places in the previous shows. Today’s special pays full tribute to the topic. The focus is not on the hits, of which there are so many in this segment. But we can’t do without them either. I couldn’t even consider that many records. Therefore: Part 2 is coming!