various: de jeunes gens modernes

This compilation, originally released in 2008, explores the French vaults of French post-punk, electro-pop and French no wave. Between the late '70s and mid-'80s, in the wake of the punk wave and in parallel to other types of music like disco, funk, ska and reggae, a prolific and chaotic music scene began to develop in France, combining the energy of rock and the nihilism of punk with electronic experimentation. The period was not, on the whole, one of optimism and joy, played out as it was against a background of economic crisis and the Cold War. The tendency was rather towards disillusion, accompanied by a clear-sighted recognition that a stalemate between the generations would be unavoidable in the short term. Paradoxically, as it would appear, a kind of hope and frenzied vitality could also be detected during these years. Both were fed by a sort of modernist utopia, which was sometimes willfully ironic. This was largely based on a certain fascination with technical progress and, by extension, on a belief, tinged with mistrust, in the infinite perspectives that the new technologies now seemed to offer. A whole section of France's youth found itself confronted by the contradictions of the times it was living in: young people were torn between the sensation of living on the edge of an abyss and hope for the dawning of a new world; they were deprived of tangible ideological landmarks but resistant to the post-hippy utopias of the previous generation. In search of an identity, they recognized themselves in the dark lyrics, the cold synthetic music and the laid-back attitude of the new groups bursting up all over the country, as much in the provinces as in Paris. Artists include: Tokow Boys, Guerre Froide, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Ruth, Kas Product, Henriette Coulouvrat, Ice, Mathématiques Modernes, Metal Boys, Visible, Mécanique Rythmique and Charles De Goal.