This energetic local band has made more than one passerby whirl around the streets of Nice. They have a troublesome tendency to line up fiery melodies that sweep us away, playing anywhere from Volume, at the science faculty’s common room party, to opening for Les Ogres de Barback on the first of December last year. Recently, they were seen on the beach supporting the Nice collective “Les Enfants de Don Quichotte,” offering, apart from their own songs, some well-received covers of Têtes Raides, Les Ogres de Barback, and Les VRP.
Their concerns remain close to the ground with lyrics that are sometimes realistic, sometimes militant. The accordion is like a gust of warm wind that capsizes even the most reluctant minds. If the term “street music” means anything, it’s certain that En vrac can claim it just as La Rue Kétanou does. Yes, the street belongs to them, and it belongs to everyone, and music is the link between those who express it and those who listen, between those who don’t live from it but experience it; and the street is still the simplest place to create connections, to convey emotions.
Brassens’ legacy is never far away, but besides the lyrics and acoustic guitar, the pieces are all intelligently orchestrated and finely executed: percussion, accordion, flute, and violin all harmonize beautifully to bring to life moments suspended in time whose vibrations will resonate long in the hearts.
