With flashing colored hearts on their chests, the French group L’Impératrice stood at the edge of the stage at Bimbo’s 365 Club in San Francisco the night before their performance at Outside Lands and felt the love. During a sold-out set featuring inflections of funk and silky disco basslines, the six-piece ensemble connected with an audience who may not have understood the French lyrics lead singer Flore Benguigui sang in, but certainly understood their universal language of groove.
“The groove is really, really important for us because it's the key of making good music; of making music emotional and true, sincere and alive,” founder Charles de Boisseguin said in an interview before the show. L’Impératrice which has been around since 2012, is made up of de Boisseguin on keyboard, Hagni Gwon (keyboards), David Gaugué (bass guitar), Achille Trocellier (electric guitar), Tom Daveau (drums), and dynamic vocalist, Benguigui. It was after the 2019 re-release of their first album, Matahari, in English, and a Coachella set in 2022 that went down as one of the best debuts at the festival that the sextet started catching ears in the US. As French performers, they didn’t intend or expect to break out in America, but the undeniable danceability of their music plus the charm of the breathy pop vocals transcended whatever thoughts they had about language being a barrier.
It’s the live experience – the way they command the dancefloor with textures of low-down bass and funky guitar under keyboards that shimmer like a disco light – that makes it clear why L’Impératrice has become a bit of a phenomenon. Now, after almost two years of touring and bringing the magic to audiences across the globe, the band is getting off the road and planning to work on new music.
At the end of the show, as the band took in the heartfelt cheers of the crowd, they also took the time to thank the staff members at the venue that make what they do possible, a reminder of all the humans it takes to put together a show; and that we all need each other so we can have moments of feeling euphorically together because of music. Because that’s the power of the groove.
