The Imperishability Of Je Suis France

originally published April 25, 2007

It’s hard to believe how good this band turned out to be. Je Suis France started as a joke, and a joke it remains. But it’s nuts how complicated and captivating the joke has become, and how flexible and adept these guys are in their particular comic medium.

Picture a bunch of guys at a large Southern university. They give each other cheesy nicknames. They get together as a large group and engage in self-conscious social rituals that are basically excuses to drink a lot in each other’s company. They end up starting a band, as if by accident: a synthesis of peppy late-‘90s indie rock, Trans Am-inspired prank-prog, Ween-ish script-flipping and a particularly Athenian diffidence. They play a few sloppy-ass shows. Sometimes, members of “working” bands get on stage with them, or pass through their lineup, but the whole thing is never much more than an excuse to get drunk.

At some point, whether by accident, design or inertia, they become something akin to an actual band. Although they still rely on counterintuitive cover songs for crowd-moving purposes, they write some good songs of their own. They practice. They put out a debut record that’s unpretentious and fun, but nevertheless reflective of a certain humble sincerity and ambition. They tour behind it. They get better and better. They continue to share bills with the bands they once opened for as little more than comic relief… and, on hot nights, they blow these bands away.

Everyone graduates. Some carve out adult lives in their college town. Some follow their professional aspirations elsewhere. One guy moves to Boston. Another guy moves to California. They keep the band alive, at least in name, unable to let such a high-quality joke go. Since it was always a joke, they’re never too bitter about anything that didn’t happen right away. Je Suis France has never been predominantly goal-oriented.

Nevertheless, this band will not die. Behind the drunken antics and fundamental inability to do anything in full-blown earnest, there’s something driving these fellows to keep practicing, keep touring and keep improving. They used to end up at the same basements and backyards without much calculation; now they travel cross-country to play and record. But they keep doing it. They put out records, each a rung up from the previous. They get a national rep. They play with some of the most esteemed names in neo-prog, including Oneida and Acid Mothers Temple. Their erstwhile contemporaries fade away. Somehow, they keep going. You couldn’t be blamed for, at one time, thinking that maybe they didn’t have it in them. It hardly seems fair somehow.

And yet, 10 years on, Je Suis France has dropped the strongest, strangest, most habit-forming record of its career. Afrikan Majik is an hour-long coup de grâce. It’s a classic straight out of an era that’s probably over by now anyway, but it’s also aesthetically rootless enough to fit in anywhere in time or space. For any humble party dudes who wonder if their humble party band is a waste of time, Je Suis France has much to teach, even if, after this record, the members can safely address y’all as “son.” The festivities commence with “Sufficiently Breakfast,” a mix of controlled Can-style buildup and the band’s trademark “hammjammin’” abandon. This one goes on for 16 minutes. It’s so tight and cathartic, it almost doesn’t matter whether the rest of the album is worth a damn or not.

It’s just the warmup, as it happens. Je Suis France’s self-deprecating humor allows it to be absurdly “epic” and remain thoroughly charming, and the France folks aren't shy about using that privilege. “Whalebone” and “Wizard of Points,” in their simultaneously satirical and functional bastardization of prog’s “cinematic” conventions, both clock in at eight minutes plus. So does “Feeder Band,” an ominous wall of pure digital ambience. All four of the aforementioned jams wear themselves out without ever weakening. Deejays, light your cigarettes.

But when Je Suis France stays true to its indie-rock, house-party, less-is-easier origins, it can sometimes be even more compelling. “Virtual Heck” and “Chemical Agents” mix multiple hooks and good-natured lyrical pessimism like the finest cuts from Superchunk or Archers of Loaf. “That Don’t Work That Well For Us” is a song the band has kicked around for years now (a variation on its pet theme, which is basically, “don’t fuck with the France”), which here becomes rich, deep, cryptic guitar pop (even as its lyrics, upon inspection, still make Bon Scott sound like Heidegger). And “The Love of the France” serves to remind, out of absolutely nowhere, why a lot of people still love things like spring rain showers and that first Stone Roses record.

How to end such an album as Afrikan Majik? How about a slab of intensely ridiculous dub reggae, with lyrics about flying monkeys, the joys of fucking off at work and the superfluousness of footwear? Behold “Never Gonna Touch the Ground.” And prepare to take Je Suis France seriously, no matter how many times these guys dare you to take them as a joke.

Emerson Dameron

Liner Notes is Flagpole's music opinion column. Interested in contributing? Contact music editor Chris Hassiotis with ideas at music@flagpole.com.