Indochine

Indochine are to this day the only French-speaking band to have sold more than ten million records over their career. This isn't a cold number to boast about, but rather an interesting fact, given that French culture has always been tightly bound to the figure of the chansonnier. The first bands able to achieve considerable commercial success only emerged in the late Seventies, incredibly late compared not only to the English scene, but also to the Italian one.

Add to this the greater difficulty bands face in staying at the top compared to a solo singer, premature break-ups, and careers rarely lasting longer than a decade, and it's easy to understand why French culture reserves a rather limited mythology for the category.

This is what makes Indochine so significant: they defied unfavorable odds, managing to establish themselves and become one of the icons of the Eighties. They then survived a decade — the Nineties — in which everything seemed to go wrong and which drove most of their peers to throw in the towel, before returning to the spotlight in 2002 and staying there ever since. All the while offering elegant, creative pop rock, keeping pace with the times, weathering their stylistic shifts and taking on their challenges without ever resting on their laurels.

The birth of Indochine happened extremely fast. Guitarist Dominique Nicolas and singer Nicola Sirkis met in December 1980, when they both joined Espions, a Parisian rock band destined to split up without leaving a trace. Their time in the group was very brief, since neither of them felt at ease there. They decided to break away and start a new project. Saxophonist Dimitri Bodiansky, whom they met through a mutual friend, soon joined the duo.

The newborn band, keeping a close ear on sounds coming from Britain, began writing songs with lively rhythms, built on simple, repetitive structures. On September 29th came their live debut at the Rose Bonbon, a cult venue for the local new wave scene, which had also hosted Taxi Girl, Suicide Romeo and Artefact. Indochine, however, had an extra weapon: their charismatic frontman. Sporting démodé outfits with clear echoes of 1930s regime uniforms, an over-the-top hairstyle, but above all a nervous, powerful voice able to bring out melodies that were still skeletal, Nicola caught the eye of young producer Didier Guinochet.

From there to a contract with a Bmg subsidiary was a short step. The start was explosive, thanks to "L'aventurier" (1982), the title track of their debut album and one of the best-known songs of European new wave. The album "Le péril jaune" (1983) refined and polished the sound, though with less commercial fortune. For a deeper look at these early, fundamental steps, we point you to the monograph dedicated to Indochine on the pages of OndaRock.

This brings us to their third studio effort, which would seal their consecration. The quartet decided to ease off a little compared to the jagged, reiterative songs churned out previously: the result is a varied record that loses none of its dynamism and vitality, but shows a band far more capable of playing with nuance. The maturity they had reached is also evident in the sheer range of themes tackled.

Inspired by the cover of “Horses” by Patti Smith, “3e sexe” is an anthem to diversity and tolerance, at a time when the subject was far from being on the agenda, at least in France: "And they take each other by the hand, a girl who's masculine, a boy who's feminine [...] The great shock for the most depraved, it's almost a witch hunt".

The song would immediately prove to be a double-edged sword: teenagers loved its message of freedom, but the media fiercely criticized its content, repeatedly accusing the band of promoting homosexuality. Time has thankfully done it justice, and today "3e sexe" stands as a cornerstone of French rock, admired across the board for its foresight. The backing showcases jangle guitars, atmospheric keyboards, bass lines split between synthesizer and fretless, layered percussion courtesy of session player Arnaud Devos, and pulsing sax to reinforce the chorus.

Even better is "Canary Bay", which draws on similar sounds and adds a vocal-sampling interlude with a symphonic flavor. The martial pace of "Monte Cristo" brings a good dose of epic grandeur to the palette, further confirmed by "A l'assaut", amid swirls of acoustic guitar and a soaring chorus punctuated by sax and synthetic sparks.

Casting a glance at Marguerite Duras's celebrated erotic novel "L'amante," "Trois nuits par semaine" rises out of celestial electronic swells and, amid melodic variations and feather-light guitars, sustains its ethereal tone throughout, especially in its coda. The romantic peak, however, comes with the closing track, "Tes yeux noir," a reflection on losing a loved one, which unfolds through hushed rhythms, expansive guitars, moving sax melodies and keyboards that mimic an orchestral backdrop.

The success is enormous: the album reaches number 2 on the charts, stays in the top twenty for a year, and sells 950,000 copies across the French-speaking market. A single featuring remixes of "3e sexe" and "Trois nuits par semaine" hits number 3 and reaches 600,000 copies. An alternate version of "Tes yeux noir" is also released as a single, and although it stalls at number 8, it wins its battle on television thanks to the video directed by Serge Gainsbourg, destined to leave a mark on a generation's memory. The master allows himself a cameo, alongside the most deserving disciples he could have wished for.

In the right-hand column of this feature, beneath the tracklist, OndaRock usually publishes the music videos for songs taken from the albums. This time we've chosen not to, because the videos for "3e sexe," "Trois nuits par semaine" and "Tes yeux noir" contain, as just explained, versions that don't match those on the album. These aren't radio edits, but complete reworkings of the songs. Those versions can be found, for anyone wanting to hear them, on the compilation "Le Birthday Album 1981-1991." The album versions remain preferable, though, with their epic tones and sweeping dynamics, which place them among the masterpieces of new wave, French-speaking or otherwise.

Even with Nicola Sirkis as its only constant presence, Indochine's career continues unstoppably to this day: the 2017 album, "13," was recently certified diamond in France for surpassing half a million copies sold (an even more striking fact: almost all of them physical, between CDs and vinyl).

On June 25, 2020, meanwhile, the new single "Nos célébrations" was released: it's no coincidence that this coming December will mark exactly forty years since the meeting between Sirkis and Nicolas, which gave birth to the band.

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29/06/2020