The SIMONE project

Simone is the first album of the band Rue de Tanger. Led by double bass player Pierre-Yves Le Jeune, the trio presents a unique blend of french traditionnal accordion and oriental rhythms. While being part of current modern jazz trends, Rue de Tanger stands out for the originality of its influences and the strength of its discourse.

About the creator

My name is Pierre-Yves Le Jeune, I am a double bass composer and arranger. I have worked on the production of jazz, world-music and electro albums, some of which have sold several thousand copies.
As a bass player, I have had the chance to play with incredible musicians who still inspire my creativity.
I have performed on many stages in France, in Europe and America.
For the curious please visit my personal website: www.pierreyveslejeune.net

History

With an accordionist grandfather, I grew up in a musical environnement where the accordion had a special place.
After a few years of exploring the traditional musette repertoire (a French instrumental music and dance, very popular in the interwar period), I wanted to offer a contemporary reading of this singular style, drawing inspiration from the sound of the suburbs of our major French cities.

The gestation lasted for many months, after which the idea of combining the accordion and oriental percussions, in a jazz trio form, appeared to be the right formula in terms of sounds, colors and spontaneity.

At that point, the choice of Laurent Derache (accordion) and Dogan Poyraz (drums) was obvious. Both have extraordinary personalities and share character traits such as passion, thoroughness and sensitivity.

Laurent Derache is recognized as one of the best accordionists in French jazz and Dogan Poyraz is a percussionist with multiple rock, jazz and Anatolian music influences.

Very quickly, the alchemy operated between us and the desire to fix this new experience on a quality support began to gain ground.

The SIMONE project could start !

The project in details

THE ALBUM

The album is inspired by the image of a mysterious and elusive character, a character who may be hiding in all of us...

Following Simone's silhouette, the trio goes up the thread of crossed destinies and tries to reconstruct, by fragments, a biger picture of our contemporary society. Thus, the album develops multi-ethnic musics which speaks of memory, exile but also our reluctance to follow our most intimate convictions.

Included 7 tracks : 5 compositions and 2 covers by Jo Privat, arranged by myself.

La Zingara 6'14
Simone 6'18
Balajo 5'23
Rétrospection 8'30
Denya quoi ! 5'49
Chez Odette 4'26
La poule aux yeux d'or 5'41

On "Denya Quoi!" Sofian Saidi, the emblematic singer of the new Raï scene, came to add his voice for a new creation of Algerian java !

By recording at Studio Midi Live (Villetaneuse, France), one of the best French studios, we have chosen to set the level very high in terms of sound quality. For this project, we also had to be accompanied by an exceptional sound engineer and we found him in the person of Jean-Baptiste Bruhnes. This guy, with whom I had the pleasure of working on a previous record, is also one of the most requested French sound engineers in jazz, film music or pop music (Titi Robin, Miossec, Warren Ellis, etc.)

For the mastering, I called on an expert in the subject: Benjamin Joubert (Richard Galliano, Bireli Lagrene, Eddy Louis, etc.)

The album Simone is also a multidisciplinary project on which work: graphic designers, photographers, video artists, decorators, etc.

It constitutes a technical and organizational challenge but also and above all, an incredible human journey.

The essential Sylvain Gripoix took care of the photos of the album and the design, graphic realization was entrusted to Jérôme Barbe and Hülya Sen.

For the promotion of the album, a video of the title 'Rétrospection' was produced by the talented Dimitri Rowe assisted by Moh Aroussi in the incredible setting of a disused factory in the Parisian suburbs. Sound recording and mixing were provided by Martin Guesney and photo by Clement Duquenne

Producing an album or a clip requires a lot of investment in terms of time, energy and, of course, money.

For the recording of the disc and the realization of the cover, the production of the clip, we could count on the support of our small label Wopela, with which we put money aside for each concert.

Thanks to this structure and the work of Mathilde our administrator, we also obtained the support of the FCM (found for musical cration) and the SCPP (civil society of phonographic producers) for a total amount of € 6,700.

For the creative part, with our personal investments and cultural aids, we have broken even. But all that is not enough, we also need, for this project to succeed, to launch the physical production of the disc and to invest in a campaign to promote the album carried out by a professional for professionals (press attaché).

It is on these last two points that we ask for your suport. They are both essential in order to bring this project to fruition and bring it to life.

The pressing

We opted for the pressing of 1000 CDs in digipack. The number of copies may seem high but our distributor (L'Autre Distribution), needs a minimum number of 500 to 700 copies to ensure proper implementation of the disc at the national level. The rest of the CDs will be sold at the end of the concerts or via this crowdfunding campaign!

200 high-quality vinyl records will also be produced for audiophiles and enthusiasts of this legendary object in the history of music.

The pressing of 1000 CDs and 200 vinyl costs € 2,075 at Wolfpack which is one of the best references in the market.

The press attaché

For this crucial position, we called Dominique Abdesselam, one of the best press officers, specialized in jazz made in France. In addition to her great experience in the sector (she collaborated with Claudia Solal, Louis Sclavis, Jean-Marie Machado, Antoine Hervé, etc.), she is also a trusted person since she worked with several of my comrades including Julien Dubois for his disc "Le jardin".

Her job will be to send the discs to the various media (clipboard, blog, radio, etc.) and to follow up on listening and feedback. She will also help promote the album release concert and invite journalists to this event.

This service, which takes place over several months, is € 2,000.

CONSIDERATIONS AND THE ROLE OF CONTRIBUTORS

We have already accomplished most of the way!

The group, the label has invested a lot in this project, however, we are not sure to be able to break even.

With the end of record stores and the emergence of large streaming platforms, income from record sales has become marginal in the music economy. Crowdfunding platforms such as Kisskissbankbank offer a new economic model to continue to bring to life musical projects that engage in an other way than purely commercial music.

It is also an indirect way of pre-ordering an album and being assured that the money invested will go directly to the artists.
Aside from the 8% commission taken by Kisskissbankbank, all of the money paid will serve the project, thereby developing a short-circuit economy.

To thank you for your support, we offer a series of gifts depending on the amount of your contributions: HD digital album, signed vinyl and CD, K7 "home made", sheet music, invitations to the concert of your choice, video of your favorite song arranged by myself, etc.

RUE DE TANGER premier album

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