About

I have a terrible confession to make: until April 2017 all I really knew of French music pre-Daft Punk was a list of half-remembered bands and soloists: Métal Urbain, Cerrone, Jean-Michel Jarre, Magma, Malicorne, Heldon, Gwendal… I did know and love Gong! But were they even French?

I’d been to Paris quite a few times in the 10 years before COVID, but had rarely stepped into a French record shop. Strange for a musician and musicophile – but true. It was into Crocodisc on Rue des Écoles that I made my first serious foray. I was on a mission to find the French picture-sleeve 45 of See Emily Play, and in my search I stumbled across a whole rack of LPs labeled “Prog Français”. That was a new one on me – I vaguely knew of Magma and Heldon, but here was a whole section packed with French progressive and underground rock. 

There were two possibilities: this was going to be:

1) a motherload of undiscovered oddness rivalling Krautrock, or

2) total pants.

Thankfully the former proved true. It didn’t take me long to discover that the French underground music scene of the ’70s was incredibly fertile, producing brilliant music in almost every genre.

Unfortunately the total lack of support from the local music industry meant that it languished in obscurity. Even more “successful” bands like Magma and Heldon were barely operating at a subsistence level. Subterranean rather than merely underground, most bands were buried leaving only vague traces of their existence.

As my search turned into a quest, it slowly dawned on me that if any other anglophone was to find out about these records they needed a reference, in English.

And so it began…

Now, after reading everything I could find written on the topic (obvious mostly in French), translating a multitude of articles (from Rock & Folk, Actuel, Pop 2000, etc), and interviewing more than 40 musicians from the scene – here we are. In July 2025 Synths, Sax & Situationists will finally be ready to be released into the wild.

Ian Thompson is a writer and musician based in Australia.

P.S. I did find the 45! (But not in Crocodisc…)