Yan Wagner « Il Est Vilaine »

On December 18, 2026 at 7:00 PM, La Coopérative de Mai presents Yan Wagner - Il Est Vilaine.

Yan Wagner has often questioned time: what has been, what never happened, what could be. First came his debut album, Forty Eight Hours, dark and mysterious. This Never Happened followed, brighter. Then Couleur Chaos, with disco influences, sung in French. With Æther, Yan Wagner returns freer and more daring. A raw, rock project—at once tender and cutting—that goes back to his first musical thrills of the 1990s: jungle and drum’n’bass, echoing his listens to the Chemical Brothers or Massive Attack. With Scott Walker and David Bowie’s Blackstar as guides, both his sonic palette and his voice, still as enigmatic and elusive, Yan Wagner confirms with Æther a singular place on the French alternative scene.

For ten years Il Est Vilaine has been setting dancefloors alight with an electro sound tinged with sleazy rock that evokes more the New York of the Bush Tetras or the Tokyo of YMO than the rustic records of Pont-Aven. It was in Paris—not Saint-Malo—that the two collaborators met, and from there, following in the footsteps of the Kill The DJ roster before them, they renewed the synthesis of new wave and techno, of disco and surf rock, much to the delight of those who still dance like Ian Curtis.