When: 7.30pm on Sunday 30 March 2014
Where: The Roadhouse, 8 Newton Street, Manchester M1 2AN

We’re delighted to be promoting Fránçois and The Atlas Mountains’ first Manchester headline show in over two years.

Meet François Marry – a multi-talented songwriter, musician, animator and artist, hailing from Saintes, a small town on the west coast of France who goes under the name of Fránçois and The Atlas Mountains.

Frànçois moved to Bristol from France in September 2003. Over the past few years, François has recorded a couple of albums and EPs, released through Too Pure and Fence Records, and has performed around the globe with Camera Obscura, Electrelane, Anna Calvi and King Creosote & Jon Hopkins.

The new album from Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains, Piano Ombre, will be released on 17 March via Domino. La Vérité will be released as the first single on the same date.

The follow-up to E Volo Love is Frànçois’ first album to be recorded in a bona fide studio and with a producer (Ash Workman – Metronomy / NZCA Lines). The album was written in the South West of France (where Frànçois lives once again after moving home from his adoptive Bristol) and features his current line-up of Atlas Mountains: multi-instrumentalists Amaury Ranger and Pierre Loustaunau, drummer Jean Thevenin (all Frenchmen) and Glaswegian keyboardist Gerard Black.

Piano Ombre, which translates as Calm Down Shadow (meaning to ‘no longer be scared by things, because there is a way to see things in a positive light’), was written during a tumultuous year in Frànçois’ life. Lyrically, the album documents another journey, of personal struggle, discovery, conviction and resolution, however the darkness of the lyrics is counterbalanced by the bright, airy and upbeat production.

Piano Ombre is a stunning and wide-reaching collection that reinvigorates the band’s gene pool of influences – from Afro-pop to French chanson and Yé-yé, mixed with more Anglo-phonic guitar-pop, like an aural atlas of gorgeous pop melody, zestful rhythm and lush ballads. It also manages to capture the ecstatic energy of the band’s live performance. The result is Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains’ most sophisticated, arranged album yet.

Tour support comes from Barbarossa. James Mathé, sometime associate of the Fence Collective, Jose Gonzalez and Johnny Flynn, trades in soul inflected electronics. With a kitbag full of huge, emotive songs that aim straight at the heart, big things are expected in 2014.

Opening the show are I Am Your Autopilot, who blend analogue synth oscillations, choral vocals, orchestral textures, and chiming guitars. A truly eclectic sound, ranging from pure electronica to orchestral psychedelia, from psych-folk to dirty pop, I Am Your Autopilot have released two albums: Robots in the Orchestra (2009) and The Stillness of the Sea (2013).

Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from Common (no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.

Attend on: Facebook | Last.fm