Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
Two years after her EP "Hey Right" and a long tour with The Limiñanas, Nika Leeflang
returns with the excellent album "Bad Sunday". "This Record balances between French
and English, calm and storm, melancholy and euphoria, introspection and
the desire to break everything. As always, to make a good record, you
need a good mixer then, good ingredients. Take Kurt Cobain's blond
hair, Kim Gordon's class and flow, add the Bardot/Gainsbarre period, the co-arrangements of Aymeric Severac, Romain Preuss and David
Darmon and finally, PJ Harvey's guitar and you'll get Nika".(Translated from Gaëtan Chapiteau's Bio). "Bad Sunday" will be released on March 19th via
M.A.D. Pias (Mutual Artist Distribution) at all the usual streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and iTunes and then physical copies will follow via Bandcamp, so please keep an eye on
Nika's official web-site or Facebook pages for news on how to order. The
band's new music video "Good Sunday" will be released on March 15th, but in the meantime, here's a superb video for another track off the record entitled "Broken Bones".
Shouting her Lyrics and Guitar: Nika Leeflang. Hitting
the Drums: Yannick Gomez. Playing Bass, Guitars, Backing Vocals,
Organs: Aymeric Severac. Swinging additional Guitars, Organs, Backing
Vocals: Romain Preuss. All songs written by Nika Leeflang. All tracks were recorded at Vox Studio Montpellier by Jeff Saboy and John Chapman except "Night Call" produced by Ty at Noisy Bay Records.Mixed at Mirador Sound Studio by David Darmon. Mastered at Vintage Sound Studio by Luis Mazzoni. For more information on the official release date of "Bad Sunday" and how to order, please check out the official Nika Leeflang web-site.
I first became aware of Nika Leeflang when I saw her singing with The Limiñanas at their superb show at London's legendary 100 Club earlier this year. I was inspired to find out more about the band's influences and history which led me on a voyage of discovery into the vibrant music scene of the band's Perpignan hometown. I found out about the pre-Limiñanas bands such as Beach Bitches and Les Bellas and then I checked out the work of the other various band members which would lead me onto Crank, Hair & The Iotas, The Toxic Farmers and then Nika's own music too. I caught up with Nika and asked how she got to know and work with The Limiñanas. "They called me up when they needed a new singer for their promotional tour when they were searching for a label to sign them. I always used to accompany artists on tour and a fellow called Raph Dumas, who was working with Renaud Papillon Paravel, gave them my phone number. I was happy to travel so much and to live the ‘musician’s dream’ - that is to play big stages in many places and to meet people and sweat on stage." I think most people in the U.K. would, like me, have first discovered Nika's own music through her association with The Limiñanas and I was intrigued to find out more about her own background. "My family was based in the Netherlands and my father and mother, thinking they couldn’t have children, began to travel around the Mediterranean coast. One day, they were in the South of France and that’s where I was born so they decided to stay at that place, the place where I still live, Clermont L’Herault. My life is made of many kilometres of travel, but I like my birthplace."
Nika with The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo Retro Man Blog
I asked if music had always been in Nika's blood from an early age. "I remember dancing in my parents room to "One Love" by Bob Marley when I was just five or six years old. I remember some French songs by Jacques Dutronc and also Ray Charles who gave me intense happiness as a child. Then when I was around eleven or twelve I was a big fan of Michael Jackson and James Brown, who taught me how to shake my body to Pop rhythms everywhere and all the time. I made my mom crazy because of the noises on the floor from dancing!" But luckily it seemed as though her parents didn't discourage this interest in music. "When I was a child, my parents took me to local events where I was always dancing and watching the musicians, very close to the stage. I was a little one, but already in love with musicians, and still musicians are people that really impress me. Every story is so different, it’s endless, and for me musicians are like bibles, very precious, enriching and stimulating". So I wondered when did this love of music move Nika enough to start writing her own songs. "My mom was an English teacher in a bilingual school, and for a year, she took me with her, so we had these one hour journeys from home to school and back again. As I was eight years old, these travels seemed so boring that I started to write down my poems, my little stories and then one day, a song. So, I continued that way, to write down my impressions of life, of my feelings and emotions and then the day I held a guitar for the first time, I was already so inspired and naturally started to sing and play the guitar." I asked if there was a particular band or artist that had inspired her. "A few years later, I sat alone in a comfortable chair, listening to the album "Is This Desire" by PJ Harvey and I remember I said to myself, "I wanna be like that girl!" I’m a big big fan of PJ Harvey’s music and career as an artist, she is unstoppable and always amazed me with her classy voice, always changing and evolving and just the way she is and the way she represents herself."
Nika's latest song "The Night Call" is very textured and atmopheric, almost cinematic in it's feel and I could imagine her easily moving into movie soundtrack music. I wondered if was this something that she would consider in the future. "I am actually a very emotional person, and if I get the space I’m very imaginative and creative and my way of inventing my world is just as it seems to have enough rhythm. I really like independent movies, Directors such as Quentin Dupieux and others like David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch. I often discover weird films on French TV channels such as Arte or 5 but generally I still have a lot to discover and rare are the films that don’t bore me. I need action, drama, tears or fun but it has also to be fast-moving or just be weird. I’m also a real lover of short films, court métrages and I like humorous actors." I asked if Nika had any preference between working in the studio or performing live? "I adore recording at my studio, which I share with my guy, we are always exchanging ideas, guitar riffs and stuff. I always take these moments as kind of magic because I can create when I feel like it and not when I have to. But my favorite place is on stage".
I was interested to find out about her songwriting process too. "I always note my thoughts and my little stories since a very long time ago. Sometimes I take my guitar and there it goes, an indescribable flow of automatisms and I let it go, it’s kind of liberating! I used to write for friends and help them to get their experiences into words. I adore giving strength to others. My friend Souflette, a poet, very dear to my heart (M. Rico) wrote me a song years ago called "Horses" which was released on my second E.P. "7 songs". We played some shows together when I was touring my solo set, and we alternated songs and poetry. It was a super cool tour." Nika is currently working on a new LP and I wondered what should we expect? "As my personality is like a kind of chameleon, I will perform and sing up and down, French and English, Pop and Shoe-gazing, Grunge and Glitter! I won’t dare to give just one shade of me, because I waited for too long with my ‘being shy thing’ you know, thinking too much but doing nothing. I think the 8-trax release will be a part of me and then the L.P. will be another part of me. I’m currently looking for partners and labels for promoting and distribution, because although I can do a lot just not as far to have enough contacts to play in Japan, in the U.K. or around Europe. But well, I think every musician is looking for that. As soon as possible I’ll share on Soundcloud, Bandcamp or YouTube and hopefully vinyl and CD will follow".
With sincere thanks to Nika. There's a feature on The Limiñanas stunning show at The 100 Club with photos and videos in the Retro Man Blog archive here. You can find out more about The Nika Leeflang Project at her web-site here or at the official Facebook page here. Then, we also play a great track from the "Hey! Right" EP in the latest episode of Retrosonic Podcast which you can listen to/download below or subscribe at iTunes.
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
This was my first live experience of The Limiñanas and I was curious to find out how the Perpignan based duo of Lionel and Marie Limiñana would recreate their studio sound on stage. Each album features a somewhat bewildering cast of guest musicians and vocalists whose names have become more familiar as their reputation grows. Anton Newcombe from The Brian Jonestown Massacre guested on the excellent single “Istanbul Is Sleepy” and has gone on to produce their latest outstanding LP “Shadow People”. French actress Emmanuelle Seigner sings on that album’s title track and Joy Division and New Order’s Peter Hook adds his instantly recognisable trademark bass to "The Gift", following up his appearance on their last album "Malamore". The Limiñanas are the band that have everything, everything except cymbals that is. The first thing I see as I walk into the 100 Club is a huge bass drum resplendent with the band’s logo, pushed right to the front of the shallow stage. There’s also a floor tom and a snare drum but there's not a cymbal or Hi-Hat in sight, just a tambourine fixed to the floor tom for added percussion and that’s it. The Limiñanas sound is based on Marie’s pounding hypnotic Mo Tucker style. She is a remarkable drummer; how she can keep that rhythm up throughout the show without being exhausted, I just don’t know.
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
They are certainly an unorthodox band, Lionel attacks his guitar and cranks out some excellent riffs but doesn't sing at all during the show, his microphone is only used to say thank you every now and then. What Marie and Lionel have done is to assemble a quite superb band around them to realise their sound and vision perfectly. Each member has their own distinct character and personality and there's a great chemistry between all of the musicians on stage; this is certainly not just a bunch of session musicians thrown together to do a tour. Ivan Telefunken almost steals the show despite being set up behind Marie’s drums. He is a constant blur of motion. If he’s not swaying along to the music or adding backing harmonies, he’s playing a small keyboard or throwing his guitar and ukulele about with abandon. One minute he’s attacking his guitar violently with a bottleneck slide and the next it’s a violin bow. At one point, he even bangs it alarmingly with a large metal spoon. All the tools of his trade are brightly painted with multi-coloured polka dots and it makes a great visual contrast as the rest of the band are decked out all in black. Renaud Picard takes on the main male vocal parts and acoustic guitar and behind him is Alban Barate on guitars, ukulele and keyboards. The lead female vocals are handled by Nika Leeflang, who also bashes away on a tambourine, often half hidden behind her swirling hair. To her side, Bassist Mickey Malaga looks cool with his low-slung Fender Precision bass, Paul Simonon and JJ Burnel style, just as any good bassist should.
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
The Limiñanas are not only a visually impressive live band; their sound is also extremely cinematic. Throughout their albums and indeed tonight’s show, they drop in instrumental interludes such as “Tigre du Bengale” that mix exotic Eastern, Turkish and Moroccan motifs. Overall, their sound is infused with Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western soundscapes and John Barry’s Spy movie and TV theme tunes with twanging surf guitar riffs and an impressive sense of dynamics. Ivan coaxes weird feedback and noises out of a strange contraption and this adds layers of distortion and depth to the proceedings. This evocative approach is also to the fore in their spoken word vignettes such as “Dimanche”, which are obviously heavily influenced by Serge Gainsbourg’s classic “Histoire de Melody Nelson”. One of my favourite songs on the new album is the title track “Shadow People” which in the recorded version features vocals by the actress and musician Emmanuelle Seigner. It reminds me of The Soundtrack of Our Lives “Midnight Children” in which the Swedish Psych Rock legends invited Jane Birkin to duet with their singer Ebbot Lundberg. The good thing is that, rather like TSOOL, The Limiñanas take their varied influences and twist them into something totally unique. You can sense that they are enthusiastic music fans but they are certainly not trapped by their inspirations and do not fit easily into any particular genre. After all, Lionel has gone on record as saying that The Limiñanas basic rule is to “respect no dogma”. This is apparent in some of the cover versions they have recorded by acts as diverse as The Beach Boys, Jay Reatard, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Kinks and Lords of The New Church. Actually, I was disappointed they never played LOTN’s “Russian Roulette” even though it was down on the set-list as a possible encore. Nouvelle Vague have already recorded a Bossa Nova version of “Dance With Me” and with the new Stiv Bators documentary, maybe The Lords of The New Church will finally get a well-deserved reappraisal!
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Two unfamiliar numbers really stand out, “Dreams” and “Last Picture Show” turn out to be unreleased songs from a new project called L'épée which features Lionel and Marie along with Anton Newcombe and Emmanuelle Seigner. I’ve been told they have an album’s worth of material already recorded and that will definitely be something to keep an eye on. Despite incorporating some challenging, discordant elements into their music, The Limiñanas never lose that all-important sense of melody, particularly on the fuzzed up riffs of their debut single “I’m Dead” and my personal favourite “Funeral Baby”, both of which, despite the rather morbid titles, are as catchy as hell. Nika’s voice really shines on these two numbers and her breathy, sultry style is the perfect match. It wasn’t a surprise to discover that she is also a singer songwriter in her own right with two excellent EP’s out under the name The Nika Leeflang Project. One of the highlights of the gig for me was “Crank” which was a blast of raw Garage Rock adrenaline. I didn’t know this song at all but after a bit of research found out it was from one of Lionel’s old bands, The Beach Bitches. Trying to track down more information led me to discover Renaud’s band Crank who were so inspired by The Beach Bitches song that they named themselves and their debut album after it as well as recording their own version. I must just add that the Crank album is superb and the fact that they mention The Prisoners as an influence earns them extra points.
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
The Limiñanas at The 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
One of the best things about having a “new favourite band”, especially one with such an eclectic musical palette, is that you can happily embark on a voyage of discovery, looking into what each member was up to before, along with any side projects, collaborations and unknown cover versions. For example, before The Limiñanas Lionel and Marie were in Les Bellas and they have an excellent compilation album of early releases called “Belladellic” which is well worth getting hold of. So I’m now on the trail of Pascal Comelade, Bertrand Belin, Ultra Orange, The Toxic Farmers and The Llamps and I’ve even managed to get hold of a compilation of Perpignan based Garage Rock bands. Oh, and I just noticed Hair & The Iotas too so it looks like I have a lot of listening to do. Anyway, back to the gig and a totally wired version of Can’s “Mother Sky” hints at yet another side of the band and that hypnotic driving rhythm certainly makes sense. By coincidence, I bump into The Undertones Damian O’Neill who also plays in the The Everlasting Yeah a band who merge Can’s motorik beat with Television's Richard Lloyd/Tom Verlaine entwined guitar style to great effect. Damian is as enthusiastic about the show as I am and it’s nice to see him shake hands and congratulate bassist Mickey at the end of their set. Up next is the excellent “Betty & Johnny” from their second album “Crystal Anis” and they encore with a raucous sing-along version of “Gloria”. This segues into a manic instrumental and as the song implodes and the set ends, the band look genuinely touched by the warmth of the reaction from the crowd. I am so pleased that I got the chance to be there, right down the front of the packed out 100 Club as I have a feeling that the band will be selling out a much larger venue next time they come to play in London. However, the most exciting thing of all is that musically The Limiñanas have not set themselves any boundaries, they can evolve in any way they choose. So as a fan, it will be fascinating to continue following them on the journey that lies ahead.
For more information on The Limiñanas please check out their official web-site or their Facebook page. Nika Leeflang's music can be found at her Nika Songs website. For more of our photos of the 100 Club gig please head on over to the Retro Man Blog Facebook and there are more videos at our YouTube channel.
