French 79 – Teenagers – Brilliant Album – 2023

Review for French 79 – Teenagers – Album – 2023

Facts

Artist: French 79
Country of Origin: France, Marseille
Title: TEENAGERS
Format: Album, Stream, Download, CD, Vinyl
Genre: Electronica
Label: IN-EX/ Alter-K
Release Date: May 05 -2023
12 Tracks • 55m 29s

At qobuz available in Hi-res
24 Bits / 48 kHz – Stereo

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Review

The king of „French Touch 3.0“, the man behind Kid Francescoli’s hit Moon and master of soulful synthesizers, Simon Henner has released TEENAGERS, his magnificent third album on IN-EX/Alter-K on 05 May 2023.

The album was produced at Jean-Michel Jarre Studio (the Godfather of the French Touch) near Paris and mixed in the southern French countryside at Miraval Studio, now owned by Brad Pitt. At the knobs and controls was Damien Quintard, known for his exquisite work with Brian Eno, Parcels, Justice, Sade, L’Impératrice and many more.

Marseille-based artist FRENCH 79 was discovered in 2017 with his debut album Olympic, and has since helped reshape the genre „French Touch“. In line with electronic music geniuses like Erik Satie, Jean-Michel Jarre, Air and Daft Punk, French 79 is a master at the synths and an amazing songwriter.

Taking the two tracks „Between the Buttons“ and „Diamond Veins (feat. Sarah Rebecca),“ both from the 2016 album Olympic), „Between the Buttons“ is a contemplative cinematic gem and „Diamond Veins,“ now platinum certified, is the ultimate uplifting pop anthem. Just listen to both tracks, I’ve linked them for you here.

From time to time French 79 aka Simon Henner even grabs the microphone to sing straight ftom his heart, like on Hometown (from his second album Joshua). He is an absolute live sensation and just finished a sold-out world tour with more than 100 gigs (including London, Montreal, Amsterdam, Mexico, Berlin, Athens, Barcelona, Istanbul, Paris, L.A., NYC…).

TEENAGERS perfectly reflects his multi-layered musical work with a wide variety of melodies, sounds and loops. With organic house beats, psychedelic soundscapes, soulful arrangements and finely flavored ingredients like neoclassical electronic beats, epic cosmic disco sounds and romantic excursions into distant sci-fi worlds, French 79 presents us with TEENAGERS a fascinating electronica album of the highest quality.

The Bottom Line

Already when the single „Burning Legend“ was released at the beginning of February 2023, I was completely thrilled. This single from the album Teenagers is for me one of the best Electronica tracks that have been released since 2020 and the video for it is simply terrific. The track bites abruptly into your auditory canal, conquers the heart and soul of the listener within a very short time, ingratiates itself, won’t let you go and makes you turn the volume up further and further – and made me incredibly curious about the new album TEENAGERS.

If you, like me, have a soft spot for electronic music from the neighboring country France and you think that the music of Sébastien Léger, NTO, Worakls, Joachim Pastor, Superpoze or Thylacine belomgs to the best that Europe has to offer in the field of contemporary electronic music, you will quickly be enthusiastic about French 79 and the new album TEENAGERS.

The album is immensely diverse from the beginning to the end, incorporates an enormous amount of influences from various electronica subgenres, and sounds typically pleasantly French. And besides, it comes across so completely different, as so many other things to be discovered in this genre. The album TEENAGERS is so far one of the best albums of the year 2023 and has the very best chances to find itself on top of the list of the best electronica albums at the end of the year.

TEENAGERS is available in 24 bit/48 kHz hi-res format and sounds excellent across the entire frequency spectrum and is best suited for dancefloor and even better for long listening sessions over excellent speakers of the home high-end system or with a good pair of headphones on the ears.

Rating

Listen to the Album and Buy it

My Testequipment:

Studio 1 (High End):

• 2 x System Audio SA Mantra 50 (front)
• 1x System Audio SA Mantra 10 AV (center)
• 2x System Audio SA Legend 5 (Rear)
• 1 x System Audio Saxo 10 (Subwoofer)
• 4 x Onkyo SKH-410 (B) (Dolby Atmos)
• Auralic Altair (Audio Streaming Client mit max. 32 Bit / 384 kHz)
• NVIDIA Shield Pro mit Plex, Kodi (max 192 kHz für  Audio, Tidal (MQA Streaming Client)
• AppleTV 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Amazon Cube 4K (Streaming Client) Dolby Atmos (restricted), HDR, Dolby Vision
• Panasonic DP-UB9004 (4K UHD Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Oppo UDP-203 (4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player) Dolby Atmos, HDR, Dolby Vision
• Yamaha CX-A5100 (Preamp) 4K, Dolby Atmos, Hi-res
• Yamaha MX -A5000 (Power Amp)
• Sony KD-55A1 (TV) 4K OLED, HDR, Dolby Vision

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