L'Impératric's debut album arrived in 2018 all the pomp and circumstance of a coronation. "Impératrice" is French for "Empress", and if their moniker is the most difficult thing to grasp for anglophones, then musically there's nothing that doesn't translate. The Parisians draw from a range of genres, from 70s space disco to downtempo 90s synth pop, taking in French film composers like Francois de Roubaix and Michel Legrand along the way. "Albums that sold 500 copies in the 1970s are the records that interest us most," they say. Matahari is a glittering, cinematic summation of six years hard work that draws on some of the finest found sounds and forgotten sonic fandangos hiding in crates across the land, all given L'Imṕratrice's own inimitable 21st century twist.
What began as the project of one disaffected culture journalist is now, some six years later, a six-headed beast. Charles de Boisseguin had carved out a niche for himself as a respected journalist. Bylines all over France's most respected music weekly Les Inrockuptibles sufficed for a time, and he and some friends started Keith magazine in 2007 in homage to culture's greatest Keiths, from Richards to Haring. As a critic, Boisseguin had a burning conviction that he could no longer disparage the works of others until he had a go himself. And so one beautiful spring morning in 2012 he made the jump and L'Imp�ratrice was born. The poacher had turned gamekeeper.
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