French Express watch

So, there are quite a few things in the pipeline over at French Express. As usual, label boss Leon's marketing plan is to leak stuff way in advance through mixtapes (like those Belgian ones for example), Youtube teaser videos and, lately, through the British club music radio institution BBC Radio 1. And as usual we're all waiting anxiously.

Its' great to see Jaymo and Andy George jump on the Jonas Rathsman bandwagon.



It wasn't long ago Cris Malinchak released his awesome Ironbound EP, and yet it seems he'll soon release a new gem. Talent and prolificy is a great combo.



The latest member of the French Express family is Sydney producer Isaac Tichauer. And from his mixtapes and the the bits and pieces from his upcoming work, we're in for a treat. That "Doing What I Got" track is really awesome, for example.

It's interesting to hear from his early stuff that Isaac Tichauer has, just as Chris Malinchak and Leon Oziel himself, a background with the synthier French touch house. The French Express blog, that proceeded the label, posted a lot of the French masters in the genre, like Lifelike and Fred Falke. The French Express guys are now all in the forefront of the movement from French touch house and nu disco towards deep house and garage, and have in that regard left the likes of Falke and Lifelike behind.

Now, I don't mean 'behind' as a negative word, it's just that the French house guys haven't jumped on this trend. When we played with Fred Falke in Stockholm a while ago, I asked him what he thought of all the deeper house that is so popular at the moment, and he replied that he doesn't really listen to club music himself, similar to what Lifelike said in our interview with him back in 2009.

So, have Falke and Lifelike 'lost it' by not switching to deep house? Hardly, it would only be weird for legends like them to completely switch sounds, just because something else is considered hotter at the moment. Am I saying the deep house trend is just a fad? Not at all. First of all, music trends, like all trends, are cyclic, and the deeper, clubbier sound is a natural reaction to the sunny 80s disco sounds we listened to so much a couple of years ago. It's also cool to see a new generation producers exploring the culture treasures that emerged from Chicago, Detroit and New York in the late 80s and early 90s. And after all, it's music that is close to my heart at least.

So where are we going? I'll leave you with this mystery track from French Express; it might contain some clues. Will the tropical disco and deep house sounds evolve into at least a dipping in to stuff like Latin, samba, tribal or even jazz house? It would only be logical in a way.