Photo by Ben Potton Photography - Artwork by Madam Two Saws / Ohm Boy - 1974
Artwork by Sanna Stradling
Topette!! News - Tazon is here...
The Tazon, in certain parts of central France is the person at a party who says they're leaving after "just one more drink" or cigarette at 10pm, but they're still very much there at 4am, and about to have "just one more"... For the fifth album from Topette!! the name seemed somehow appropriate!
Released April 21, 2026
Available now from The Shopette!! topette.bandcamp.com/album/tazon
Check out this fantastic video by Ben Potton
TAZON UK TOUR - Topette!! will be out on the road in June...
04/06 Brighton & Hove - The Brunswick
05/06 Guildford - Worplesdon Memorial Hall
06/06 Weedon Bec (Northamptonshire) - Village Hall
07/06 Edinburgh - Columcille Centre
08/06 Newcastle-upon-Tyne - Star and Shadow Cinema
09/06 Sheffield - Crookes Social Club
10/06 Llanfairfechan (Bangor) - Community Hall
11/06 Shrewsbury - Abbeygate Hall
12/06 Gower Folk Festival
13/06 Stroud - Lansdown Hall
14/06 Uffington (Oxfordshire) - Village Hall
Check out our Gigs page for details and ticket links: https://www.topette.co.uk/gigs.html
New Release - Tazon by Topette!!
Having thrilled audiences across the UK and Europe for twelve years, Tazon marks the advent of a Topette!! regeneration. Following the departure of Tania Buisse and her propulsive bodhran, and the arrival of percussionist-extraordinaire Laurence Hunt, the band have stormed into their next era with a fresh sound, and wasted no time before heading into the studio to record it on their fifth album, due for release on April 21st.
The title hails from the local dialect of Berry, in Central France. “Tazon” is the slang term for a party goer who, at 10pm, announces they’re leaving after just one more drink. Yet somehow, it’s 4am and they’re about to have one more for the road… Captured over just five days at producing mastermind Joe Garcia’s Bristol-based studio, Joe’s Garage, Tazon is what happens when a group of mates really can’t leave the party - but the result is 14 brilliant tracks and the party goes on for over an hour, so there should be no disappointment each time it sticks around for ‘just one more’.
It’s a fantastically eclectic mix of traditional and self-penned instrumental tunes, plus a few from other composers, all performed with Topette!!’s signature brand of éclat, taken to the next level by their newly acquired percussive soundworld. This music pulses with the dance rhythms of balfolk and transports you across the channel to festivals like Le Son Continu without ever asking you to put down your tea or take off your slippers (unless you want to, of course). Anyone at the beginning of their listening journey will do well to start here before enjoying the band’s earlier albums as something of an ‘origin story’. Already a die-hard Topette!! fan? Fear not - you can’t fail to recognise their inimitable joie de vivre in these tracks. Just think of it as having been nudged into sixth gear.
In turns excessively funky, dark and dramatic, heart-wrenchingly poignant, and joy-filled and glorious, Tazon is filled with tunes from across Europe, including many home-grown classics by members of the band. Traditional and contemporary sit seamlessly alongside each other - Italian waltzes, French polkas and interpretations of Finnish songs are sandwiched between modern mazurkas, blistering Bal Limousines and even an undercover dub step masquerading as a schottische!
Fiddler James Delarre and accordionist Andy Cutting bring sparkling melodic conversation, Barn Stradling and Julien Cartonnet, on acoustic bass and banjo respectively, add distinctive pulse and groove (when the latter isn’t bringing the bagpipes to the party, that is), and there’s certainly no hint that Laurence Hunt hasn’t always been underpinning the glorious harmonic interplay around him with intoxicating rhythm. They’re some of the finest individual instrumentalists on the European balfolk dance scene, and as Topette!!, they join together like a finely tuned machine - and create a sound that's far greater than the sum of its parts.
In Tazon, these five musicians have made more than just a collection of great music for dancing. Every track is a performance, inviting you to experience the joy and energy of their musical style. When the band head out on tour in the summer, it’s sure to be standing (and dancing) room only, but for now, this new release invites you to join Topette!! at the kitchen table, where you’ve caught them exchanging musical ideas and friendship over a glass of wine. Fair warning: you won’t be there for long before you feel the urge to move, because whether you’re a foot tapper or a self-certified bal enthusiast, Tazon will find you.
By Rachel Wilkinson
In early 2024 Topette!! celebrated 10 years together, with the release of their fourth album, ON - Live at The Jam Jar.
A brilliantly recorded document of a warm June night in Bristol, UK. The album is brimming with the joyous atmosphere of a roomful of happy dancers and listeners, and a band at the top of their game, all having the best time.
With their UK base in Bristol, and their French home in Burgundy, it’s a rare treat when Topette!! get together to play. This live album features a couple of great guest players from France, Romain Chéré and Antoine Turpault, who join the band for the last few tunes, adding to the party vibe, and creating a huge sound.
The new album ON - Live at The Jam Jar is available now, from The Shopette!!
topette.bandcamp.com/album/on-live-at-the-jam-jar
"You’d never find The Jam Jar if you weren’t looking for it. Tucked away between and behind things, it’s the sort of place that makes Bristol special. It’s eclectic and filled with joy. The Jam Jar is one of those wonderful venues where magic happens.
On June 26th, 2023 Anglo-French folk collective, Topette!!, slipped between musical styles and created their own very special brand of magic, in a room festooned with lights and overflowing with smiles and dancing feet. With tracks from across all three of their critically acclaimed studio albums, Topette!! staged the very best pro-European party imaginable.
ON - Live at The Jam Jar captures a truly unique band, melding styles and traditions with a delightful sense of risk and vibrancy. There’s no fuss, no messing about, this is just the best kind of folk music - loud and lively, joyful and uplifting, collaborative and instinctive. This live album celebrates their ten years together in the most fitting way."
By Gavin McNamara
A brilliantly recorded document of a warm June night in Bristol, UK. The album is brimming with the joyous atmosphere of a roomful of happy dancers and listeners, and a band at the top of their game, all having the best time.
With their UK base in Bristol, and their French home in Burgundy, it’s a rare treat when Topette!! get together to play. This live album features a couple of great guest players from France, Romain Chéré and Antoine Turpault, who join the band for the last few tunes, adding to the party vibe, and creating a huge sound.
The new album ON - Live at The Jam Jar is available now, from The Shopette!!
topette.bandcamp.com/album/on-live-at-the-jam-jar
"You’d never find The Jam Jar if you weren’t looking for it. Tucked away between and behind things, it’s the sort of place that makes Bristol special. It’s eclectic and filled with joy. The Jam Jar is one of those wonderful venues where magic happens.
On June 26th, 2023 Anglo-French folk collective, Topette!!, slipped between musical styles and created their own very special brand of magic, in a room festooned with lights and overflowing with smiles and dancing feet. With tracks from across all three of their critically acclaimed studio albums, Topette!! staged the very best pro-European party imaginable.
ON - Live at The Jam Jar captures a truly unique band, melding styles and traditions with a delightful sense of risk and vibrancy. There’s no fuss, no messing about, this is just the best kind of folk music - loud and lively, joyful and uplifting, collaborative and instinctive. This live album celebrates their ten years together in the most fitting way."
By Gavin McNamara
Topette!! occupy a unique position in the current folk and traditional music landscape. A collaboration between five highly-regarded individuals from two countries, they’re the kind of perfect idea that, if they didn’t already exist, someone would have to invent. Yet Topette!! are no mere ‘project’ band. They’re a fully-formed and functioning group of the kind that rarely comes around nowadays. Topette!! are a true collective - bonded as much by the joy found in each other’s company as in their shared musical vision.
Julien Cartonnet is a powerhouse on both bagpipes and banjo. Fiddler James Delarre’s innate melodic and harmonic sensibilities make him the perfect match for accordion virtuoso Andy Cutting. Tania Buisse’s propulsive bodhrán playing and Barn Stradling’s singularly distinctive bass grooves complete a sound that is irresistible to ears and feet alike.
‘Bourdon’, is a French word that literally means ‘bumblebee’ - but also the drone of a bagpipe. Recorded in just four days by producer Joe Garcia, Topette’s third album shows a marked progression from their previous releases whilst retaining the immediacy that made those albums so appealing. If anything, the group’s long, enforced hiatus (their last pre-pandemic, pre-Brexit gig was in December 2019) has reinforced their sense of unity and reinvigorated their ensemble playing. The all-instrumental album features an eclectic selection, with tunes by band members sequenced alongside compositions by legendary French musicians Frédéric Paris and Bernard Blanc, and American ‘outsider folk’ hero Michael Hurley. The inclusion of both a Cotswold Morris tune and a traditional French folk melody celebrates the group’s roots and affirms their defining ‘spirit of European friendship and co-operation’.
By turns energising, lyrical and hypnotic, Bourdon is a joyous antidote to dispiriting lockdowns and dreary parochialism. Music that sounds as good from an armchair as it does in the middle of a packed festival dance tent."
By Steve Hunt
"The Topette!! sound enters your skull and penetrates, burrowing deep and never loosening its grip that proves irresistible to both feet and brain."
David Kidman, Folk Radio - www.folkradio.co.uk/2022/04/topette-bourdon/
Available now at the Shopette!!
https://topette.bandcamp.com/album/bourdon
Julien Cartonnet is a powerhouse on both bagpipes and banjo. Fiddler James Delarre’s innate melodic and harmonic sensibilities make him the perfect match for accordion virtuoso Andy Cutting. Tania Buisse’s propulsive bodhrán playing and Barn Stradling’s singularly distinctive bass grooves complete a sound that is irresistible to ears and feet alike.
‘Bourdon’, is a French word that literally means ‘bumblebee’ - but also the drone of a bagpipe. Recorded in just four days by producer Joe Garcia, Topette’s third album shows a marked progression from their previous releases whilst retaining the immediacy that made those albums so appealing. If anything, the group’s long, enforced hiatus (their last pre-pandemic, pre-Brexit gig was in December 2019) has reinforced their sense of unity and reinvigorated their ensemble playing. The all-instrumental album features an eclectic selection, with tunes by band members sequenced alongside compositions by legendary French musicians Frédéric Paris and Bernard Blanc, and American ‘outsider folk’ hero Michael Hurley. The inclusion of both a Cotswold Morris tune and a traditional French folk melody celebrates the group’s roots and affirms their defining ‘spirit of European friendship and co-operation’.
By turns energising, lyrical and hypnotic, Bourdon is a joyous antidote to dispiriting lockdowns and dreary parochialism. Music that sounds as good from an armchair as it does in the middle of a packed festival dance tent."
By Steve Hunt
"The Topette!! sound enters your skull and penetrates, burrowing deep and never loosening its grip that proves irresistible to both feet and brain."
David Kidman, Folk Radio - www.folkradio.co.uk/2022/04/topette-bourdon/
Available now at the Shopette!!
https://topette.bandcamp.com/album/bourdon
Ricer, by Andy Cutting has proved to be a big hit with dancers and listeners at Topette!! bals and concerts. So we've released this brilliant new live video by Simon Houlihan. youtu.be/z5W3PkbuRZQ?si=Ko_gq_iwCaZbG6q6
“Rhododendron is one of those rare instrumental – and dance-oriented – albums which gives virtually equal proportions of cerebral and visceral pleasure. Seriously recommended.”
David Kidman, Folk Radio UK.
Available on CD or download now...
www.topette.bandcamp.com
Following a season of smouldering live shows across the UK and Europe in 2019, acclaimed Anglo-French acoustic dance band Topette!! were back in the studio to record an eagerly-awaited second CD Rhododendron.
Capturing the atmosphere and spirit of those live shows, this album resonates with the wild energy of packed dance-floors, firing the five players’ imaginations and galvanising their playing. Rhododendron is a bold and exciting album, infused with good-time feeling, pulsing drive and joy...
www.topette.bandcamp.com
Following a season of smouldering live shows across the UK and Europe in 2019, acclaimed Anglo-French acoustic dance band Topette!! were back in the studio to record an eagerly-awaited second CD Rhododendron.
Capturing the atmosphere and spirit of those live shows, this album resonates with the wild energy of packed dance-floors, firing the five players’ imaginations and galvanising their playing. Rhododendron is a bold and exciting album, infused with good-time feeling, pulsing drive and joy...
Also, still available at the Shopette!! www.topette.bandcamp.com
C'est le Pompon... The first full-length album from Topette!!
"A collective of uninhibited musical adventurers playing self-penned and traditional music from anywhere, with a winning mix of bonhomie and grit.
Born out of friendship, the five-piece play naturally social music – for filling dance floors, for listening, for drinking with friends – but don’t expect it to merge into the background. This is raunchy, up-all-night, joyously jugular-grabbing dance music.
Driven by the rhythmic boiler-room of Stradling’s gnarly bass, Buisse’s intuitive bodhrán playing and Cutting’s warm bottom end, the melodies burst out of the seams of this bedrock. With great big anthemic walls of sound, Cartonnet’s glowing French piping and visceral tenor banjo, Delarre’s bright, bushy-tailed fiddle lines and Cutting’s dynamic accordion style. They are, quite literally, having a bal!"
By Sarah Coxson
Topette!! are...
Andy Cutting - diatonic button accordion & melodeon
James Delarre - violin & viola
Julien Cartonnet - French bagpipes, & tenor banjo
Tania Buisse - bodhrán
Barnaby Stradling - acoustic bass guitar
Sound production and recordings by Joe Garcia
Videos by Simon Houlihan
Photography by Ben Potton, Simon Partington & Bastien Clochard
Graphics by Sanna Stradling
Please credit them, if using. Merci beaucoup!
Topette!! Tune Books, available now from the "Shopette!!"
www.topette.bandcamp.com
All of the band's compositions, compiled in this beautiful manuscript booklet.
A treat for musicians of all abilities. Tunes to learn and share.
www.topette.bandcamp.com
All of the band's compositions, compiled in this beautiful manuscript booklet.
A treat for musicians of all abilities. Tunes to learn and share.