See You at Thirty
Born Bad Records turned twenty at the Botanique. Four bands, a Sunday afternoon, and a record shop in the lobby.
The Orangerie is shut for works — a few more months of it — so the party happened in the Musée, the Botanique’s exhibition hall in Brussels. It is not my favourite room for a concert, and I say that as someone who has spent a lot of Sundays there. But when a Paris label turns twenty and brings four bands across the border, you take the room you are given.
Leroy Se Meurt opened at five sharp, to a hall that had not finished filling. Their synth punk is EBM, but not quite — we went into why a few weeks ago — and the people who had the good sense to turn up on time spent the rest of the evening explaining to the latecomers what they had missed. They are not signed to Born Bad, which had a few people in the room wondering what they were doing on the bill. Mathieu told me why: an album is due on the label next year.
The set opened with the title track from Hier Pour Toujours, then “Du Plafond à la Terre” and the acid-drenched “Retour à la Poussière” from the LRSM EP. Fifteen tracks in all, Volkan Ergen contorting at the front while Mathieu Laurent hammered the beats behind him, closing on “Veuve 909”, which settled the matter. If anything was missing it was percussive punch — a few of these hit harder on record than they did in the room.
Gwendoline drew the room in. A woman’s first name for an all-male band, and a set that moves between electro-pop and Lescop-style cold wave, carried by a deadpan irony that does a lot of work: “Audi RTT”, “Chevalier Ricard”, “Chèques Vacances”, “Rock 2000”, “Conspire”. The titles tell you most of what you need to know about the register.
Then Zombie Zombie, and the stage arrangement said it first: Étienne Jaumet’s eurorack planted dead centre, two drummers facing each other from either side. Kraut pulse, kosmische drift, synths doing their best John Carpenter — six tracks, no more, and the hour went somewhere I did not notice.
Frustration took the main course and turned the Musée over. The room was full by then, and the pits ran one into the next through “Pepper Spray”, “Midlife Crisis”, “When Does a Banknote Start to Burn”, “No Trouble”, “Dreams, Laws, Rights and Duties” and, inevitably, “Too Many Questions”. On “Blind” the bass player went into the crowd for a long, happy swim, leaving his instrument to someone from Gwendoline while Fabrice Gilbert held the front. I first saw this band more than ten years ago. The years pass, and at the end of every one of their shows I come to the same conclusion: they are the kings of French post-punk, and probably Joy Division’s closest living relatives.
So: a good time at Born Bad’s birthday party, which had the excellent idea of running a record shop in the lobby with vinyl at twenty euros a go. See you at thirty.
Setlists
- Leroy Se Meurt — Botanique 11/10/2026
- Gwendoline — Botanique 11/10/2026
- Zombie Zombie — Botanique, 11/10/26
- Frustration — Botanique, 11/10/26
Born Bad Records, 20 ans: Leroy Se Meurt, Gwendoline, Zombie Zombie, Frustration — Le Botanique (Musée), Brussels, Sunday 11 October 2026.
Text and photographs © Ian Joy, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.
