Francois & The Atlas Mountains

Banane Bleue (LP)

Banane Bleue (French for “Blue Banana”) is a nomadic and truly European record, hailing from rented workspaces in some of the continent’s key cities - Berlin, Athens and Paris - and recorded with instruments that were often borrowed from likeminded musicians. Written solely by Frànçois Marry himself, close collaborator and Weird World artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi was enlisted for production duties whilst Renaud Letang (Feist, Gonzales, Connan Mockasin) mixed the album.

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The title of the album is taken from the ‘blue banana’ concept, a geographical theory that groups together a corridor of Europe’s biggest cities, originally conceived in the 1980s. The theory states that the blurring of these cities’ boundaries has resulted in the formation of one massive, interconnected megalopolis. Expanding on the theory, Frànçois poetised it, picturing a luminescent blue banana shape that you can see from space with vibrant, ethereal currents that surround and bind us. It explores common cultural and romantic ground, creating an album full of missed meetings and misunderstandings.

“I have often asked myself what my relationship history would be like if I had been born on another continent. Our idea of love, which comes from the 18th and 19th centuries, is ingrained in the walls and aromas of cities, cafes, nights out in bars, romantic getaways and city breaks; as if European electricity emitted some kind of romantic scent.” This electric grid of romance is personified in the ‘Blue banana’ concept.

Songs, such as "Julie", "Holly Go Lightly" or "Golden Lips", date from the time Frànçois spent living in Bristol in his early 20s. They twinkle with a lingering nostalgia synonymous with British pop music: catchy yet deceptively carefree. Others are much more recent, like the hypnotic "Par le passé", whose glistening keys were recorded at MABA, an artist residence that adjoins an art gallery and a retirement home in the Paris suburbs.