Margaux Bouchaudon and En Attendant Ana on Dubstar – Disgraceful 
Typically just one person tackles the task of Hidden Gems. It’s hard to find an album that’s been a key player in the lives of an entire band, but En Attendant Ana have seemingly found something that’s got crossover appeal to the full five, while also beginning its creep under the radar of the pop consuming public. As the band gears up for the release of their new album Principia this week they also dive back into their love for a UK nugget that fell between the cracks. Check out their entry below.
“It’s not an easy task to pick up one album because we are 5 and we always try to give common answers. So to find one record that would have the same importance for every one of us is nearly impossible. We all have various “influences” and different musical backgrounds and I think that’s what makes playing together so interesting. The songs as we play them always represent a nice balance between everyone’s tastes, expectations, and desires. Anyway, today we all agreed on talking about an album we discovered not a long time ago, last summer to be precise, and it is Disgraceful by the English band Dubstar.”
“I’m gonna try to be quick,” muses the band’s Margaux Bouchaudon, “but Vincent (who plays bass in EAA) and I both work in a recording studio near Paris with our dear friends Alexis and Paul. It is called Studio Claudio and this is (of course) where we recorded and produced Principia. Last summer, Alexis and I decided to do some maintenance work in the studio. Not complicated stuff, only basic cleaning and painting tasks. I thought it would take 1 day, 2 days tops… I was so wrong. It took us far more than two days, a time we used wisely, raging against the bad quality of the paint or the unevenness of the walls. But we also listened to a lot of music, and thanks to a very well-known streaming platform’s algorithm, we discovered Dubstar, whom I’d never heard of before. The first track I heard was “Just A Girl She Said” and I fell in love with it almost instantly: Sarah Blackwood’s voice, the lyrics, the chord progression, backing vocals, everything! Three weeks after that, we left for a mini tour, supporting Metz, and I played this song in the van. Everyone loved it, as well as the whole album. We felt like it mixed a lot of our respective influences: 90s vibe, soft and luminous vocals and backing vocals, a mix of both melancholic and joyful tracks. I really clung onto Sarah Blackwood’s vocals that kind of reminded me of Trish Keenan a bit. It’s not necessarily a record that I listen to every day (as opposed to Broadcast for instance) but it appeared at the right time for the mediocre painter that I was (am).”
On whether the album has influenced their own writing, Margaux notes, “Our album was already finished when we discovered Dubstar but maybe the next one will be influenced by it, who knows? Or it will be the perfect occasion to work on a new cover? Let’s talk about it later!”
This is another entry that, much to my delight, I’d been completely unfamiliar with. The album’s still widely available, so it’s an easy one to get a acquainted with. Quick searches prove you can even pick up physically, though the LP’s gonna run ya quite a bit. It’s a fun pop romp that brings back waves of late ‘90s nostalgia, even without a familiarity with the songs. Take a few spins through Disgraceful and pick up En Attendant Ana’s Principia February 24th on Trouble in Mind.
Support the artist. Buy it HERE.