zikzak mix : Cosmique Français - An Overview of French Cosmic Music. 1969 to 1980
Sorry for the delay in posts. Sometimes I let the other projects in my life overtake posting here. Hopefully now that I have some of these things wrapped up, the delay wont be so great in posting here
Over the past few years i have done several mixes that highlighted the underground music scenes in several countries in the late 60’s to early 80’s. Typically i concentrate on the more cosmic/psychedelic aspects to these scenes.
One of the most popular ones i have done over the years is my dive into the French music scene of this era. Since i created this several years ago, there has been a lot more scholarship on the subject and thats been a great thing.
I have decided to post some of these mixes to Bandcamp since i want more people to be able to hear them. Its often kind of a drag to go onto mixcloud or soundcloud to stream these things. Aslo i would like to think that these mixes would be something people might like to download and revisit from time to time. That helps in locating some of the albums these came from along with just the ease of repeat listens. Im not charging for these and the track listings will only be found here on zikzak
There are a few links i can provide to give more background on the subject. The first will come from Warren Hatter. His writing is responsible for bringing this music more into the light.
Concrete Science Fiction Riot: Why Do We Ignore The 70s French Underground?
FrenchRockSampler - 26th April 2020 (Cosmique 1)
you can find him here at twitter: https://twitter.com/Frenchrocksmplr
As for my description of this music, i will try to keep it brief and let the music do the talking, but really one of the most important things i would say about the French scene is that its every bit as good the German scene that has gotten significantly more press. I suppose a lot of this is down to the label “krautrock” which has made it music more marketable. Since other scenes in Europe dont have an equivalent branding, some of this has been lost or minimized. In this mix i have tried to highlight the groups or artists i really like and that have really created what i think as the best of that particular sound. Obviously i have left a lot of people out. This is because its really down to my specific taste
I hope you enjoy these mixes and that they help you in your future music journeys
It is at last this portion of the total European underground arts and music is being researched and documented, with relatively easy access to that information via the internet. France’s underground music has been the most elusive up until fairly recently, the reissue labels have done a great favor and I hope they continue to do what they do. Unless a person lived in or near a major USA city “back when”, mostly in the northeast USA, the records were difficult to find even at their time of issue.
Being a part of that era, it has been a life study since those times to try and round up as much of the music remembered from then, and seek out even more of “what happened”. It is proving to be an interesting armchair journey.
Your patience to source out and piece together the beautiful mixes on BC is much much appreciated!
These mixes are important works of aural archaeology. Thank you for making them available to us all <3. As someone who was lucky enough to work in a huge record store for several years, the biggest lesson I learned was that, "nobody knows all the records, so be humble & listen, ask questions & grow." All of these beautiful zikzak mixes reinforce that truth so much!