…if I can feel, FRENCHY and the PUNK Mon Souvenir
Frenchy and the Punk Mon Souvenir [Zen Ghost LP] is available on Bandcamp, Deezer, Tidal
by Walter Price
As New York’s Frenchy and the Punk are prepped to release their seventh studio album ‘Zen Ghost’ (28 October 2022), the duo have dropped a penetrating psych-soaked post-punk single “Mon Souvenir” (My Memory). Brimming with their signature cinematic drama and that unforgettable voice of Samantha Stephenson and Scott Helland’s driving arrangement, this pandemic-influenced track is poised to move you.
Laughing from below a cloudless sky
Sun-drenched dreams just float on by
Looking for a way to grab the wheel
Time at my heels
Mon souvenir
Send me a sign, send me a word
Make it clear, make it heard
‘cause never gonna fix the broken seal
If I can’t feel
Mon souvenir…
As you listen to this indelible gothy rocker, close your eyes and maybe you, like me, can imagine that this single is probably what it would sound like if Siouxsie Sioux and Grace Slick teamed up for a poetic post-pandemic number. What a shadowy dream…
About the forthcoming LP, the band has posted the following on their Bandcamp page: “Dark times make for dark songs. And Zen Ghost, the seventh album by New York folk/postpunk/cabaret duo Frenchy and the Punk — singer, percussionist, and lyricist Samantha Stephenson and guitarist and composer Scott Helland — written and recorded during the pandemic-induced downtime of 2020-2021, finds the already shadowy sound of the hard-touring twosome taking an even darker turn. An inward spin, into the pair’s previously unexplored personal planes and interpretations of the insanity of our increasingly tumultuous age. But despite its more pronounced moodiness, Zen Ghost, like the rest of the band’s oeuvre, offers plenty of opportunities to dance in the darkness.”
If “Mon Souvenir” is of any indication of what the 10-track set is going to be…We’re all in. You can stream the single here, at the GTC.
FRENCHY and the PUNK Mon Souvenir
Original artists photo via Facebook // Lyrics and quotes via Bandcamp
Samantha Stephenson
Scott Helland
facebook // website // instagram
“Fusing foot-stompin’ bohemian cabaret folk, French chanson, and ’80s punk, with vaudeville charm. This Euro-American duo seamlessly blends raucous, danceable melodies and rhythms with cheeky stories sung in English and French.” – bandcamp bio