Les Punks: The French Connection album review: Punk à la française

Un, deux, trois, quatre: Punk rock's history lessons are not just found in the work of Anglophone musicians. Soul Jazz's Punk 45 series moves beyonds American and British recordings with this deep dive into the wave of French punks at play in the late 1970s.

There's much to be gleaned in terms of the artistic, political and cultural context for these recordings from both Stuart Baker's sleevenotes and, especially, interviews with such activists as Marc Zermati from Skydog Records, Eric Debris from Metal Urbain and Harry Cover's Michel Esteban.

Musically, the tracks are a colourful blur of sound and fury, catching both the influence of the punkfathers on the scene (see Marie et Les Garcons and Asphalt Jungle especially) and the manner in which later arrivals put their own Gallic stamp on things. Indeed, the electronic shimmies evident in Kas Product's Mind or A3 Dans les WC's Photo Couleur are clearly echoed in the work of today's more experimental mavericks. soundsoftheuniverse.com