I draw music from a number of sources – a podcast here, a playlist there, a recommendation and so on and I equate it to panning for gold: you have to sift a lot of mud and stones before you find a nugget shining at you from the pan. Vision 3D were one of those nuggets and were introduced to me through the excellent Smashin’ Transistors playlist hosted by Dale Merrill who, from his musical taste, is my Brother from another Mother. Dale featured the track ‘Suele Ce Soir’ on Smashin’ Transistors No. 58 and I dove straight into Google, found their self-titled Vision 3D album on Bandcamp and was immediately hooked.
There’s a fine selection of bands at the moment, including Dry Cleaning, Shopping, Drahla and Omni, who practice a stripped down, angular kind of music and haunt he higher register of their instruments, finger nails scratching at the door while searching for a blackboard; a kind of Skeleton-Pop. Vision 3D have a similar bone structure but there is warm flesh on their musical bones with full-throated, attacking chords, boom-boom drums and low-low bass. I have often referred to the power of three musicians in a band and Vision 3D sum it up perfectly on their Bandcamp page “In 3D, there are notions of width, height and depth. There is also the idea of connections that go from the eye to the brain, subtle and fascinating. Vision 3D compiles all this into rock making the most of the sacred triad (bass, guitar, drums)”
‘Party’’s drum intro leads into a solid, four-on-the-floor, crunchy bed of guitar and bass, but at the point you think you know how this is going to play out the song takes two rhythmic detours and doesn’t reward you with the sing-song chorus until over half way through the song. ‘Seule Ce Soir’ (tr. ‘Alone Tonight’) is a mid-tempo drag race of guitar, voice and bass over invigorating frenetic drums which also flips, with the drums becoming the metronome and guitar and bass becoming frenzied. ‘Stress’ manages to encapsulate the sound of a panic attack in its sonic–claustrophobia and ‘Je Dois Le Faire’ (tr. ‘I have To Do It’) is a landslide of a song, tumbling down the side of a cliff, coming to rest for a moment then tumbling once more. ‘Fan’ is a breakneck ride in car with no breaks and I don’t doubt it makes a live audience leap about like the floor has been electrified. After all this ‘Fannick’ feels almost sedate and yet it’s still a rollercoaster of blazing guitar and ominous descending chord patterns. ‘Fugacité’ crashes in like a wrecking ball but, like the meaning of its title, eventually dissipates and gives way to ‘Faut Le Faire’ (tr. ‘Must Do It’) another demolition derby of a song which feels like somebody gave 4 grams of speed to ‘I Want Candy’. The album closes with ‘Froid (J’ai)’ which blows hot and cold creating moments where everybody is playing full-tilt and mixing them relative calm and the call and response of guitar and bass.
Vision 3D are really adept at blending the expected with the unexpected, mixing tempo and styles and they create volte face changes where the solid becomes unsteady and the safe becomes unstable. It’s like a group of Jazz or Prog players said ‘to hell with this’ and burned the text books to make Jazz-Punk. Hearing Vision 3D was as exciting as a shot of tequila and I wanted to know more about so got in contact via Facebook where they were kind enough to answer some questions:
JZ: What’s the line-up?
V3D: Cédric Delaunoy: guitar hero and composer Lulu Sabbath: bass + vocal and Calamiti (Bastien) drum and vocal
JZ: How did you meet?
V3D: Cédric and I, played together during 10 years in Thee Marvin Gays and when we decided the band had existed enough, we wanted to continue something else together and, as we needed a drummer, we asked the best one we knew: Bastien Loufrani, who was playing in “Maria Goretti Quartet” and “Oui Mais Non”.
The colour of the group appeared gradually. At the beginning the compositions were more junk punk and gradually, we moved towards more post-punk compositions. The first lyrics spoke a lot about the professional situation of Lulu who wanted to kill her boss, hence the darker side of the first songs. She then resigned and the current songs speak more of the will to change society whether it be at the social, patriarchal or even societal level. But we also have songs about friends who like to party.
JZ: Your songs are in French so can you give Joyzine an idea what subjects your songs deal with, for example ‘Fugacité’?
V3D: About the title ‘Fugacité’… I’m sorry to tell you… when we first found the riffs, I wanted to record it in my phone and to remember the song, I typed “Fugazi” (one of our favourite bands) and my (fucking) corrector wrote fugacité… ok! The lyrics of ‘Fugacité’ are talking about unfairness … the moment when you decide that’s enough and you rise to fight!
We’ve also just written a song about the closure of “la main d’oeuvre” of Paris… Saint-Ouen*, the subject of the song is very close … but that for the next album 🙂
*Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine is a commune in the Seine-Saint-Denis department in the Île-de-France region of France. It is located in the northern suburbs of Paris, 6.6 kilometres from the centre of Paris. The commune was officially called Saint-Ouen until 2018, when its name was changed by ministerial order.
Vision 3D would love to play in the UK so if you are interested in booking them please contact them.
Review and Interview by Paul F Cook
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