History Rien

RIEN (= “Nothing”) was initially created as a one-off project in November 1999, just in time to avoid the big shut down of the millennium. On that occasion, they played a first shamanic twenty minute show in their hometown during an "XXX" evening. Based in Grenoble, the four first-hour disciples (aka, dos.3, Dj Goulag and yugo solo) considered this experience so successful (there was no shut down at all…) that they eventually decided to postpone their split-up until the sales period in Japan in 2014.

In 2003, they recorded their debut album Requiem pour des baroqueux, giving the packaging the form of an origami-cube which, when opened, would contain “nothing”. As a first album, it was often described as “one hour of cinematic post rock music”, inspired by the likes of Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, Radiohead and provoking enthusiastic reactions from the press. “A UFO, and what a UFO!” rejoiced the French magazine NOVA; “a great, dadaist composition” outbid the Inrockubtibles.

Their new album there can't be any prediction without future, released recently on the bands label L'Amicale Underground, doesn’t pull any fewer punches. Enhanced by a second drummer, francis fruit, and vocally accompanied by such diverse artists as Damon Locks from The Eternals or Julien Brotel, a French poet, this opus turned out to be considerably more personal, more unified, less directly influenced. From Shamanic Western (Jesusfuckingchristallmighty) to jazzy grunge (this is our grunge), over cinematic landscapes (there can’t be any prediction without future) to 80’s pop (B.A.S.I.C) and weird folk (Cowboys don’t cry), RIEN never stops “genre-defying” its listeners - leaving them, when trying to describe what the music could possibly refer to, with: Rien. Nothing. It is probably this which led Richard Robert, journalist of the French magazine Les Inrockubtibles, to rate it ‘best album of the year 2007’ which bestowed on them a steadily growing fan-community. By the way, there can’t be any prediction without future is packaged in a multi-functional pyramid: it gives the cube a roof; it offers the discs a home. And it leaves us puzzled about what will happen next.

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