MARTIN DUPONT OR THE MISSING LINK OF THE COLD WAVE
(Spanish Tour by ALL WAVES Promotions)
A few months ago I had the opportunity to interview Corpus Delicti, moments before their concert in Paris. The good energy and simplicity of this band prompted me to keep in touch with Sebastien Kuta, their vocalist, who invited me to his next concert in Marseille along with another local band. And in a series of unexpected events, I came across a name that would forever change my perception of a classic: Martin Dupont, or the equivalent of «John Doe.»
A few days before going to Marseille, I looked up some information about Martin Dupont on the platforms. When listening to the first proposed song, “Inside Out”, I had a feeling that I have rarely felt, discovering something that would broaden my horizons and change my own classics. I lived it at the age of 14 with the album Only theater of pain, by Christian Death. From there, the discovery of bands like Joy Division, Kraftwerk, Corpus Deliciti, The Misfits, Front 242 and Klaus Nomi, among others, marked my identity, closing my list of classic or key albums in my personal repertoire over the years, a closed circle, or at least, so I thought.
I didn’t hesitate to contact this band from Marseille and that same night, Alain Seghir, leader of that band, called me to arrange an interview. The following lines are the product of conversations with Alain, Brigitte, Beverly, their fans and impressions of the two concerts I went to.
Martin Dupont is not a name that everyone knows, as Depeche Mode can be. However, it quietly made its way by word of mouth, from its appearance in the early eighties until its disappearance in 1987 with key albums such as “Just because” (1984) and “Hot paradox” (1987).
The composition of this band has a singular story. The story of two lovers, Alain Seghir and Catherine Loy, who teamed up with a young punk, Brigitte Balian, to create an electronic music group. Later, a young English woman studying French in Marseilles, Beverley Jane Crew, joined the group adding a sound element that would set them apart with her clarinet from other bands. Catherine left the band, which became a trio immortalized by a series of black-and-white photos.
Alain Seghir, vocalist and mastermind of this group, has, like his band, a very peculiar history. Far away from drugs, egos and self-destruction that permeate and sink even the best musicians, the end of Martin Dupont was the beginning of a career as a surgeon for Seghir, who moved to Normandy, putting a long pause on a promising career in music. However, the cult of their work was created in the incessant search on the platforms by those curious who like to discovery different sounds. Another fundamental element was the remastering of their records by the New York label Minimal Wave, led by Veronica Vascika.
And the return of Martin Dupont was prolific, with a new album, Kintsugi, at the beginning of 2023, in collaboration with the independent labels Minimal Wave, Meidosem and Infrastition that not only united the original trio again, but also integrated the creativity of 3 new musicians: Ollivier Leroy and former Rise and Fall of a Decade members Thierry Sintoni and Sandy Casado. Titles like “Love On my Side” or “He Saw The Light” are loaded with both the past and the future, showing that this group hasn’t aged and that far from accumulating detractors, they have accumulated adepts. The proof is the first concerts in Marseille and Paris.
In Marseille, the autograph signing anticipated the tonality of the concert. Fans from Germany, Belgium, England, the United States and other regions of France gathered at the Espace Julien, the last stage where 30 years before, day by day, Martin Dupont had given its last concert. Thus, at that concert, their early years fans arrived little by little, those who had dreamed of the return to the stage of this band that in its moment of glory had left the stage with a halo of mystery. And even more surprising, the concert became a procession of musicians, promoters, journalists and DJs who came to pay homage to this mythical band that some discovered, like me, unexpectedly.
But the recognition of the importance of Martin Dupont is not the product of an exacerbated nostalgia. The Paris concert, on the sixth anniversary of the Tech Noire, put them to the test in front of a very young audience, which not only packed the Gare de Mines on the Parisian outskirts, but also gave themselves body and soul to their second concert. Now it is the turn of Spain, with three dates in Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia. Then Belgium, Canada and the United States will follow, where they are legend.
The Martin Dupont Story continues to be written. Its legacy is being redrawn among the first links of the cold wave, the underground scene and beyond. Its spectrum continues to expand without pretensions, without expectations and with a creative charge that inspires and attracts us to its musical universe.
Beatriz Rosas,
Bateau Fantôme
París 23/02/2023
