Rose Mercia – Kieres Agua? – POP news

The best French rock combo is female, suburban, sings in the language of Cervantes, Olympe de Gouges and Daniel Johnston and spits out its fire water. With love please.

With its air of filthy punk à la Oso El Roto which lays claim to spelling mistakes, Castilian, fat paunch and clumsy collage, the cover of “Kieres Agua?” left us a little wary. The fear of catching lice, no doubt… But as Los Emes del Oso (for the uninitiated: late Daevid Loyza’s electronic and multicolored newsletter) we miss a little and that we trust Adrien Durand and Renaud Sachet, we listen one fine morning with a distracted ear to this girl group which includes in particular Charlene Darling, whose “Saint Guidon” had left us a little cold. That is to say if we were unconvinced… Even if we really liked the radiant presence of a few Roses in Before the end of summer (2017) by Maryam Goormaghtigh, a film also seen quite by chance.

So a morning listening without any expectation and suddenly the attention sharpens little by little to turn into delirious enthusiasm which makes me buy the ultimate vinyl on the third listening in a row. The holy good women of Rose Mercie completely converted me. Sorry, sorry, a thousand times sorry. Let’s roll out the red carpet of influences. Yes, there’s Electrelane (it’s crazy how our passion for this group matures over time…) but also a lot of Lispector, which is more sympathetic in its glorious non-ambition, or even Marie Delta , question of generation and poetic repetitions.

A pop therefore very hypnotic, melodic, a little crazy, made with the means at hand and which draws all the threads of our attractions. The hypnotic lo-fi rock in penguin(e) (“Regresar”), the gray bluettes made of three pieces of silk string (“Dinosaur”, or Young Marble Giants in warmer, even sexy), the best of the years 80 (like Regrets of “I don’t want to go home alone” on “Des Pierres” or Elli Medeiros on “Chais Pas”) and above all the whole K Records team as Patron Saint and stallion (Ah… those guitars à la Doug Martsch from Halo Benders on “La Douceur”…).

The excellent idea that our four chicks had was to lengthen the sauce rather than staying on a short punk format. We feel the technical weaknesses here and there (as if we were concerned about it…) but they fully exploit their slender capacities and, this is the secret of the gods, the magic operates. Sharing microphones (à la Sleater-Kinney) and instruments, refusing to pose, it’s the girl group we’ve been dreaming of since the Shangri-Las, finally freed from clever and crafty producers with long teeth and wandering hands. The Rose Mercies are determined to take matters into their own hands, take care of themselves and make fun of Father Nietzsche.

“Queriendonos

Buscandonos

cuidandonos

between good and bad »

(“Witching”)

Our lost girls with oily hair, in search of love and sex, get lost, find each other, touch us all the time and we let them do it, even we ask for more:

“One in the other

Together

A sacrifice for a ritual

Daily »

(“Rocks”)

Not determined to let themselves be annoyed, the ladies are not the kind of #Metoo victims: they quote Pentangle (“Let no man steal your thyme”, which we hear positively as “Let no man steal your time”) or claim their eternal rights to witchcraft (“I will never stop witching”; this time we would like to hear “I will never stop … bitching”), Rose Mercie is the super girl group we’ve always dreamed of, not necessarily in petticoat, not necessarily sexy, not necessarily rrriiot girls, but which is moreover. With Rose Mercie, we are already in the next world and it’s revolutionary (with a Grilled Dress clip in addition).

The girls, this year, are determined to totally captivate us. Marie Delta had made me take a long “Night Road”” in the spring, the Roses close my month of November.

If we are completely swept away by this music that is both electrifying and bewitching, we are also totally seduced by the writing of Rose Mercie. In turn sentimental mutineers:

” Tell me you love me I won’t laugh

Tell me you love me I won’t get tired

Tell me you love me I won’t laugh

No no, it’s just the opposite

No no »

(“Sweetness”)

Or loving foragers:

“ too many fish

too many boys

too many boys

to remember names

Americans

Italiano

finisterian

Or Nancy

Auvergne

Or from the PACA region

Wherever you are

wherever you go

I could love you, I could love you »

(“Do not know”)

The black magic of the Roses is sometimes due to nothing: to a little extra guitar reel on a verse of “Sweet Place”, a phrase repeated like a mantra (“Muchacha… con falda” on “Dinosaur”), an orgy of cymbals on “Regresar”… And then maybe that demented riff on the final hit “Witching,” as if Daniel Johnston ditched his organ for a bass and ultimately idolized New Order rather than the Beatles, to perform a cold, wobbly, haunting funk that turns out to be hot and Latino. Once again, the Rose Mercie completely explode the sum of their influences. These scholarly women touch us, move us, take us on a rock sabbath that even makes us want to listen to Catherine Ribeiro again, that is to say…

Finally, the screen-printed spark disc is very beautiful.

Rose Mercie is life. Gracias muchachas.

Con la ayuda de Juana D., very carmencita.

“Kieres Agua?” was released on May 4, 2022 by Jedolanti Records (Paris) and Celluloid Lunch (Montreal/Canada)