We are Enfant Terrible

We Are Enfant Terrible truly are the enfant terribles of the 8-bit electro-pop world. A French trio composed of three Lille natives who share a passion for fashion, video games, and wildly-thoughtful dance music. In their short run as a group they’ve developed a passionate fan base on both sides of the Atlantic. Their debut full length Explicit Pictures (rel. Apr 4 UK/Europe – Apr 5 North America, Last Gang) perfectly showcases their knack for creating saucy hooks you cant shake and witty lyrics that are either teasing or self-mocking.

Lead singer and keyboard player Clo Floret met the group’s guitarist Thomas Fourny when they were in school together in Lille – France’s fourth biggest city, near the Belgium border. As the story goes, Clo was running late, and Thomas – who Clo claims was “spying” on her – invited her to cut class with him. “Thomas made me sing on one of his song, ‘cause I wrote good lyrics’,” says Clo, in her wonderfully-idiosyncratic English. Not long afterwards they met the guy who would become WAET’s third member – Cyril Debarge, a hyper, wild drummer who has a one-man band called Funky Fingers and specializes in Game Boy-style music. “We were all excited to mix our sounds and personalities,” explains Clo. “Pop rock with eight bit, crazy performers, but shy children.”

Explicit Pictures was recorded and mixed by Thomas Fourny at his home studio in Lille. “Every song is like a picture: an attitude, a thought of a precise and defined moment. It's like freezing a moment, an epoch that we can't catch and is already escaped that we are trying to analyze with our teasing « enfant terrible » eyes,” explains Clo Floret. “It's like plenty of moods compacted in an album. It goes from laugh to desperation, from airiness to deep riot, from indignation to resignation.” About using the Nintendo Gameboy, Thomas says the group loves the “purity” of the unlikely instrument, that it can be “so smooth and sometimes so aggressive.” Notes Cyril: “We didn’t choose to love this sound, we’ve been raised with it. From 6-12 years old, the only music we listened to was video games music.”

WAET fever immediately began to take hold with the release of their EP, “Thanks For The Fish.” Next followed a pair of singles, “Wild Child” and “Flesh ‘n’ Blood Kids,” released together as a limited-edition vinyl pressing of 500 copies now re-released on Explicit Pictures. The latter is a powerful and universal story of an unattractive kid who feels detached from his schoolmates and family. “He wants to ride the big wave / That every kids ride,” goes the chorus, “Finding a place where / All goes back to normal.” “We all could know this kind of person in high school or anywhere else,” says Clo, noting that the song idea came to her from a GQ story about an outcast college student who impersonated a sexy girl on the internet to blackmail his classmates. Wild Fish also features an addictive “Flesh ‘n’ Blood Kids” remix by Swedish newcomers PAaNik, as well as “Wild Child” remixes by Chew Lips and Juiceboxxx.

Beyond music, they also claim inspiration from ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s pop culture, not to mention Roman history (Thomas), Belgian cooking (Cyril), and kittens (Clo). Each has embraced the social network revolution, with Cyril noting the power of Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter to share resources. As for their fashion sense, Clo says they attempt to coordinate their colors and outfits “like a good Tetris game,” and calls the three of them “classy modern clowns.” “Thomas and I are Clo’s dolls,” insists Cyril. “She can dress us as she wants, matching our colors with her dress. That’s not the truth, but it’s not so far away.”