by Michal “Local Kid” Cupid

Frànçois came to Bristol from France in September 2003. He drew a picture and put a note in a window announcing his arrival, and asking people to make music with him. He started going to car-boot sales to find some instruments he could use. Overnight, frànçois won the hearts out of this town. Well of course, he’s a sweet kid, but he’s also armed with an eager sense of adventure and a keen taste for pop thrills.

In January 2004 he played his first live show, taking to the stage alone, making use of keyboards (played with his foot), a guitar, live samples and a drum machine, mixing playful and experimental ideas with his natural pop-tune sensibilities and sweet bilingual vocals. The string of live performances he has since played have all been eagerly anticipated and utterly charming. Musically, you could say he is reminiscent of STEREO TOTAL, VELVET UNDERGROUND, HOOD, and FRANÇOISE HARDY and yet he is also like nothing else at all.

He has also played trumpet onstage with fellow Bristol bands ROZI PLAIN (Fence records)  MOVIETONE (Domino) and CRESCENT (Fat Cat) and Glaswegian CAMERA OBSCURA (4ad) and skateboard onstage with HEADFALL (Spazoom) . His first album, "Les Anciennes Falaises" was released on CD-r by Stitch-Stitch in  2004. A busy year where also drew and made a photocopied zine of his diaries, ‘Livre’.

In 2005 he gathered a band of friends, 'The Atlas Mountains' and recorded "The People to Forget" a more ambitious album realeased in february 2006 on vinyl by stitch stitch. press sheet

'Fránçois & The Atlas Mountains' band toured and giged a lot across Europe and the Uk in 2006 and 2007, supporting Adrian Orange, Camera Obscura, Electrelane end many others. Gathering songs and shaping their sound from shows to shows they recorded the "Brother" album but left it unfinished. 

When the album and the band projects were quiet Fránçois went down to the south cost of England to record some songs in the analogue studio of his friend Nico Marcel. Ray Rumours invited fránçois to join her to make a split 7" for the TooPure Singles Club. The song used is 'Swimmers,Drifters' and made it to the Word Magazine covermount.

In 2008 Fránçois took a break and went back to live with his parents in France with the intention to stop the music side of things and to hide behind his brushes and watercolour paints. There he found support from a bunch of local friends who convinced him to do some recordings of the works he had prepared for a show in Paris at the Centre Pompidou.  The recordings took place partly in Charente-Maritime and partly in the Basques Country. For those sessions the musicians were the poliphonic quintet Bost Gehio and members from Unkle Jelly Fish  .

"Les Anciennes Falaises"
august2004.
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This album is made of 10 tracks composed, performed & recorded by Frànçois between April and June2004. Everything has been made in Bristol.
There's a lot of Casio keyboards on it, but also some guitars, (prepared-) piano, samples, trumpet and baby accordion... Virpie who played most of the gigs around this time with Frànçois recorded a violin part on "En bas des marches", and Rory some harp & recorder on the interludes. "Katrina" (listen) is dedicated to The Pastels' singer. "Les Anciennes Falaises" was written on a bus coming back from Cornwall. "En Bas des marches" is a mix up of childhood memories. And "Il stragniero" 's lyrics are in Greek, French, Spanish & Italian. 

SOLD OUT

"The people to Forget"
february2006
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Enlisting for the first time assistance of the cream of the city's independent music community to form the Atlas Mountains ensemble (members of Knowledge of Bugs , Whalebone Polly , Crescent and Movietone all feature), the results are a wonderful development of the playful pop sensibilities that informed his earlier material, marking a clear progression towards a richer, more confident sound.   His trademark DIY set-up is now augmented by striking arrangements of harp, melodica, clarinet and brass.   Almost orchestral in its musical flair and subtlety, Frànçois makes for a natural conductor, his infectious enthusiasm and unwavering ambition shining through the new songs. stitch006. 12"LP and cd-r. / (listen)(£9.00 p+p Europe only)for the 12"vinyl

"Frànçois et Luc-Quatre Pistes"
summer2003.

This is a split c.d. Six tracks are Luc's, they are really nice folk songs he recorded with his guitar, his radio and his metronome. The other 13 tracks are Frànçois', mostly electronica tunes. It's been recorded on a 4-track machine over the summer 2003. Aleck did the mastering. Also on it you can hear Cathrine singing (track 9&19), Aurelia laughing (track14), and Pierre shivering on a chair (track 4). It was really hot that summer, that's why you can also hear children playing in a swimming pool on track12 and the noise of a fan at the end of track 6.

" Forests Songs "
October 2006
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Split  7 inches with Ray Rumours (Lesbo Pigs, Electrelane). Her 3 spannish guitar and ukulele tunes deal with treehouses and wolf eyes. They've been recorded in madrid. Frånçois tunes deal with forest too,there's 2 sang songs and an instrumental. They were recorded on four track in the winter 2005/2006 in the yellow house. They use piano, bassdrum, junksale guitar and tin cans.

"Sleeping states/Frànçois"
june 2006 , cassette tape, yum10

a split tape with Sleeping States realeased by Undereducated records. Frànçois's side is 6 new songs recorded on 4 track in the yellow house. you can listen to "allons a la piscine" here. Rozi Plain sings on two songs and helped on some others. 3 songs are in english, 3 songs are in french.

£3 with paypal.

"The Autoroute tapes"
novembre 2004-avril 2004.
a stitch-stitch tape.

The Autoroute tapes are a collection of home recordings limited to 20 copies. They include some original songs played live and recorded with two microphones in a room on the A side. The songs are played on piano, guitar, acoustic guitar or casio. The B side is a compilation of french tunes ( Françoise Hardi, Dominique A., Erik Satie, Marie Dauphin...) from the yellow house record collection. Every tape is different and unique with tiny ink drawings in the packaging. There were only 20 of them for sale at shows but they are now all sold out.