2024-01-10 07:00:37
From left to right, Canek Flores (drums), Jean (guitar and vocals) and Rémi (bass and vocals) Fossat, from the group Slift, at the Le Manoir de Léon studio, in Léon (Landes), in January 2023. GAUTHIER BORREMANS
Huddled around a small table in a bar in the Parisian district of Oberkampf, the three friendly rockers from Slift introduce themselves with a slightly shy smile. A restraint that is the polar opposite of their feverish concerts, where this guitar-bass-drums trio triggers an impressive combustion of riffs, singing constantly in the red light and metronomic rolls capable of propelling a Firefly rocket engine into orbit. An explosion felt as far as the United States, where their third album, Ilion, released Friday January 19 on the Seattle label Sub Pop, famous parent company of Nirvana. An event, the last French group to have signed with this institution being the Thugs, more than thirty years ago. It was enough for the people of Toulouse to be named the best representatives of French rock on an international scale.
It’s the story of a group formed as teenagers around siblings, Jean (guitar, vocals, keyboards) and Rémi (bass, vocals) Fossat, and their high school friend Canek Flores (drums). All three grew up in Ariège, around fifty kilometers from Toulouse. First meeting in 2007, at music school. Jean and Canek were both in high school in the literary section. Rémi, three years younger than his elder, is still a schoolboy. “With my brother, we listened to a lot of punk rock and a little bluesremembers Jean, now 31 years old. It was Canek who introduced us to the rock of the 1970s. Pink Floyd, The Doors, Led Zeppelin…”
Slift was truly born in 2016, after a concert by the psychedelic duo Moon Duo at the Abattoirs in Toulouse. Driven by the desire to give as many concerts as possible, they rehearse tirelessly in their premises located in the hamlet of Roubichou (Ariège). “At the beginning it was quite different, we played a kind of progressive punk rock, with high school texts sung in French”, analyzes the elder. A second guitarist also plays, but quickly throws in the towel to devote himself to medical studies. The trio configuration hasn’t changed since.
The Kangoo van tours see them cross France, then gradually Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, England, Germany… Jean is responsible for finding dates: “I was looking at the tour posters of the groups that were in Toulouse and that we liked. I wrote down the names and contacted the places. » A mini-album, Space Is the Keyreleased in 2017 on Howlin Banana Records, followed by a first long format, The unexplored planet (2018).
You have 60% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
#cosmogonic #rock #Toulouse #trio #Slift