la-femme
photo: jf.julian

La Femme tell us about the influences behind their new album 'Paradigmes'

Parisian band La Femme are back with Paradigmes, their third album and first in five years, which is out today and takes them in more electronic directions, while maintaining the group’s tres chic style. It’s a terrific record — read our review here — and you can listen to the whole thing and watch the very entertaining videos for its singles below.

Paradigmes is such a blender of influences — new wave, komische, soundtrack music, big band jazz, punk, disco — we asked bandleaders Sacha Got and Marlon Magné to dive into specifics. They gave us a list of 10 influences on the new album, including Ennio Morricone, Chaka Demus, the Boswell Sisters, French punk and more. Check out their list complete with commentary below.

LA FEMME – 10 INFLUENCES ON PARADIGMES

Cab Calloway
We love the old school jazz, and how the horns sounds dirty.

James Last – “Washington Square”
We’ve loved this song for a long time, particularly the vocals, it’s very pretty.

Zafer Dilek
He’s a Turkish 70’s composer that I love; the production is so good. You can hear this influence particularly in our song “Va.”

Ennio Morricone
We love is music so much, I think he is amazing. You can hear this style in the song “Later de chevaux” — we mixed it with Giorgio Moroder electro style.

Chaka Demus and Pliers – “Murder She Wrote”
We got inspired by this song for the song “Force et Respect.” Back in the time we were going a lot in Paris called Starlight Palace and they played a lot this kind of music. It was great.

Boswell Sisters
We love those ’30s choir harmonies, we got inspired by that for the song “Pardigme.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynwtYRDP124

La Souris Déglinguée
It’s an old French punk band that we love, like the song “Jaures Stalingrad.” You can hear some of that vibe in the song “Foutre le Bordel.” Its make you want to run and go crazy.

Jeanette – “Porque te Vas”
I love this song , I got inspired by that for “Le Jardin.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWYTTQFyt74

Country Music
I love a lot of country music. Like dark country — Johnny Cash is one of my favorite singers. You can hear the country influence in “Disconnexion.” I went to Memphis for record with some local musicians, including the banjo solo played by the great Randal Morton.

&nbsp