Paris Popfest #8

Paris Popfest returns to the Hasard Ludique for its eighth edition from Thursday 24 to Saturday 26 September 2026: three nights, eleven concerts, one DJ set, a giant karaoke and acoustic performances, with musicians and audience members coming from the other side of the world and from around the corner. We will celebrate the many shades of international pop, with reunions, reformations and new discoveries.

Thursday 24 September 2026

Lande Hekt (Scarborough)
Since 2021, Lande Hekt has made a name for herself on the British underground. After two albums exploring queer identity, sobriety and trauma, she returns with Lucky Now, a more assured and serene work. Driven by indie and jangle-pop influences, the album blends bright melodies with introspection. She will open the festival.

Freshberry (Paris)
Freshberry was born in Paris in 2020 from the meeting of Jiyeonne and Pierre. The duo develops a minimal pop at the crossroads of krautrock and dream pop, a sound rarely heard elsewhere. Long discreet, Freshberry took to the stage with Diamond Files, their debut album released in autumn 2025 on Indie Or Die, Hidden Bay Records and Si Moiré Disques.

Tchotchke (New York)
Anastasia, Eva and Emily have already played in Paris as the opening act for The Lemon Twigs. Now they headline. Behind a retro aesthetic, their pop mixes jangle and glam with particular attention to vocal harmonies. They have released two albums since 2022, both produced by The Lemon Twigs.

Friday 25 September 2026

Language of Flowers (Belfast)
The indie pop of Language of Flowers, a five-piece from Belfast, evokes early Primal Scream, The Smiths, The Field Mice, Heavenly, Lush and the guitar parts of The Byrds. Songs About You, the band’s only album to date, was released in 2004 on Shelflife Records. Their second record, currently being recorded, promises a more dream-pop direction.

Laundromat Chicks (Vienna)
Since their arrival on the Vienna scene in 2022, Laundromat Chicks have released three albums (Siluh Records), moving between youthful power pop and finely crafted jangle pop, with humour, confidence and vulnerability.

Brezel Göring & Psychoanalyse (Berlin)
Brezel Göring, one half of the much-missed Stereo Total, is the inventor of the “kaputt” song, a blend of disco, hip-hop, Japanese blues, classical music and French chanson. His songs, sung in German and in French, touch on the solar system, Chernobyl, life after death and the books of Jean-Luc Hennig. This concert will be the first Brezel gives in France under the name Psychoanalyse, which he has used since 2022.

Dorian Pimpernel (Paris)
Dorian Pimpernel composes an erudite and singular pop, nourished by the Beach Boys, krautrock and the Canterbury scene. On Flowers Too, the new album released on Born Bad Records in spring—twelve years after Allombon—the Parisian quintet refines its moonshine pop (the nocturnal, dream-like side of sunshine pop) first hinted at in their mid-2000s Demo Tapes.

Jan Dark Piano Karaoke
You sing, he accompanies you on the piano. Jan Dark played at the bar Le Motel from 2015 to 2025. For this second appearance at Paris Popfest, Jan plans to expand his repertoire (more than 500 songs) with new indie-pop titles. Jan performs his own music on the EP Healer and several singles, including Chronic, and collaborates with a wide range of artists, from Klub des Loosers to Nicoletta, as well as Olivier Rocabois, Boris Maurussane, TIN, Tahiti 80, David Sztanke, Frédéric Lo and Michel Houellebecq.

Saturday 26 September 2026

Bona Rays (Brighton)
Bona Rays has come a long way. Chas, one of the first Black women to sing in a punk band, recorded the demo of Poser in 1977. But the track, somewhere between punk and new wave, was not released until February 2020. After a global pandemic and the time needed to find musicians, Chas has since released three new singles in two years. While she tours regularly in England, this will be her first concert in France.

Coup Dur (Brussels/Paris)
A Franco-Belgian yé-yé indie-pop trio, Coup Dur sings in French about love stories in the age of doomscrolling, missed dates, success stories and friendly breakups. Their first record is titled The English Want… Coup Dur (Precious Recordings of London).

The School (Cardiff)
The School occupies a unique place on the indie-pop scene, somewhere between The Ramones, The Supremes and Alvvays. While preparing a fourth album, to be released like the others on Elefant Records, this concert will mark their return to Paris, where they have not played since 2015. It will be an opportunity to (re)discover their melodic pop songs.

The Popguns (Brighton)
The Popguns formed in late 1980s Brighton and became known in the early 1990s when their singles Waiting for the Winter and Landslide charted on the indie charts. Their pop, inspired by Blondie, the Buzzcocks and The Smiths, combines bright melodies with thoughtful lyrics. Championed by John Peel and the music press, they released records and toured until 1995, before disappearing for about twenty years. Returning in 2014 with Pop Fiction, they have remained active on the indie scene, appearing at Indietracks, New York Popfest and Wales Goes Pop and, this year, at Paris Popfest.

Luis Elefant DJ
The festival’s closing is entrusted to Luis Calvo, founder of the Elefant Records label and co-creator of the Benicàssim International Festival (FIB). A DJ and selector, he offers sets that span eras and styles—60s pop, new wave, synth-pop, indie, soul and bossa—featuring rarities from around the world.