70 pages Edited by Signal Zero Text(s) by Jean-François Micard Designed by Michaël Kawiecki – Konk Studio 21 x 14,8 cm Language: French Paperback Publisher: Signal Zero Editions 2025
One often hears it said that France is not a gothic country. The public, so the argument goes, would not be ready for this musical style: the sounds are said to be too cold, too far removed from what is imagined to be the “Latin” temperament of our culture.
An observation that is obviously debatable, as soon as one scratches beneath the surface. For as early as the beginning of the 1980s, on our side of the Channel, distinctive worlds were already emerging—worlds that people preferred at the time to label Coldwave rather than Gothic. It was a teeming scene, driven by a multitude of bands whose common point was precisely that they resembled no one else—and certainly not their labelmates.
Often self-produced and largely underexposed, these groups—many of which existed only briefly—nonetheless left a lasting mark: they gave rise to a fertile lineage, spread their influence across the four corners of the globe, and invented their own forms of expression, poetry, and resistance.
