Mojo - The Music Magazine

Trans Musicales is a reliable annual guidebook to the fringes of international pop and an indication of what stands a chance of creeping in from the cold. It can also be challenging to play. In the past few years, MOJO has seen The Residents empty an aircraft hanger and Janelle Monáe fail to win over an audience intent on instant thrills. Reflection and subtlety don't necessarily go down big with the youth of Brittany's capital Rennes. But MOJO has also seen extraordinary shows at Trans by Fever Ray, The Black Angels and The Phantom Band. Unknowns are turned up year after year, a good proportion of whom become the next's year's buzz.

Even with that in mind, the 33rd Trans Musicales takes a wee bit of steeling. As usual, it's raining. As usual, the drunk jeunesse of Brittany are a lairy, bumptious lot as ready to pee anywhere as they are to square up to one another. The parallel festival, Bars En Trans - held in the city centre's small bars - clogs up the three main evenings of Trans with multi-performer bills at 16 venues ranging from a tiny bookshop/wholefood store to long thin bars with micro stages.

Ninety-six acts play Trans proper his year, 95 at Bars and 10,000 tickets have been sold for the shows Trans holds at the out-of-town hangers at Le Parc Expo. That's a tonne of music, including a fair smattering of home-grown acts, most unknown and some trying on other people's clothes with varying degrees of fit. At the small theatre L'Ubu, Splash Wave have a couple of synths on straps that hang like guitars, a laptop, and seem intent on reproducing the soundtrack to Miami Vice. Local band Les Spadassins are way more convincing, topping Brian Auger's organ with some Eric Burdon vocals. L'Ubu's best act, however, are 50 Miles From Vancouver. Singing in English, they haven't made a record but run on a parallel path to San Francisco's Papercuts, with a transfusion of Jesus & Mary Chain dynamics.

Equally great is Group Rhoda - actually San Franciscan Mara Barenbaum - a solo act who teams electric piano with a vintage Moog and drum machines to create a very human soundscape, as songs dwell on disconnection and finding paths towards connection. Danish three-piece Giana Factory are also concerned with the electronic, but favour a more polished, '80s-leaning pop sound suffused with sun-kissed harmonies. They sing of a bedridden "rainbow lady" and keep a straight face.

Ever the upbeat antidote, Brighton's one-man blues explosion Lewis Floyd Henry takes on the massive city centre hall Liberté. Get close enough and he's a winner - ragged and engaging, having a ball too - but the big Trans stages can swamp these less bombastic acts, especially at Le Parc Expo where upcoming UK electronica group Factory Floor look stranded, small. And Hollie Cook's medium-wave reggae can't reach past the first ten rows in a hall that holds 3000.

Norway's Kakkmaddafakka know how to approach Trans. Rushing onstage like a bunch of falling skittles they bounce, wave, have the audience chanting "Kakkmaddafakka" repeatedly, and then bring their two "interpretive dancers" to the front of the stage for a workout before inserting an outlandish cello solo. Their music might be indie pop with light Afro and prog touches, but their front makes them instant stars in Rennes.

Yet it's bass sax player Colin Stetson [his album, New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges, features in MOJO's list of Top 10 Underground Albums Of 2011] who truly underlines the maverick sprit of Trans. Most here have never heard of him, and have no idea that he's played with Tom Waits, Arcade Fire and David Byrne. But that seems not to matter, as his circular squalls hit a groove and stay there, causing 1500 feet to move. With no effects, no pedals, he's one man who really sounds like a band, and his mind-blowing set underlines why Les Trans Musicales remains an essential entry in the diary.

Kieron Tyler

Photograph by Gwendal Le Flem