Black Sessions

Black Sessions are performances of live music broadcast on the French radio station France Inter. They are recorded in front of a live audience, and feature on the C'est Lenoir show. For the Katatonia album see The Black Sessions.

The name "Black sessions" is a pun on the name of their creator "Bernard Lenoir" which literally means "Bernard the black"

The first performance was in 1992 and since then many French and international artists have performed Black sessions including:

• The Cure
• Placebo (band)
• Catatonia
• CocoRosie
• Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
• The Divine Comedy (band)
• Ride
• Drugstore
• Gemma Hayes
• Throwing Muses
• The Sundays
• Pulp
• The Wombats
• Pavement
• Radiohead
• These New Puritans
• Belle & Sebastian
• Lush (*01147 - Session no. 55; recorded live at studio 105 June 28, 1994 Paris, France)
• Elbow
• Weezer
• The Rentals
• The Raveonettes
• Mojave 3 (in their first public performance)
• The Eels
• Andrew Bird
• Yann Tiersen (best known as the composer of the Amélie soundtrack)
• Röyksopp (with a power-out goof at the beginning)
• Feist
• Franz Ferdinand
• Interpol (Interpol released The Black EP which featured a number of tracks from their 2002 Black Session)
• Bloc Party
• The National
• Nine Black Alps (the Glitter Gulch EP released by Nine Black Alps contains "Coldhearted", the song performed on their Black Session)
• The Divine Comedy
• Klaxons
• Guillemots
• Mazzy Star (1993-10-25)
• The Shins
• The Cardigans
• Grandaddy
• Emilie Simon
• Goldfrapp
• Broadcast
• Rufus Wainwright
• Editors
• Beirut
• Lloyd Cole (1993 [covered Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"], 1995)
• The Smashing Pumpkins
• Morphine
• Paul Weller
• Nick Cave
• Los Campesinos!
• Band of Horses
• Arctic Monkeys
• Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
• The Verve
• Madrugada (Session no. 159; recorded live at studio 105 April 3, 2000)
• Calexico (Session no. 163; recorded live at studio 105 May 22, 2000)
• Field Music

External links

• List of bands who have performed Black Sessions
• C'est Lenoir Official Homepage (in French)
• Black Sessions photos (1998 - 2000) by Laurent Orseau
• The Black Sessions: la musique pas comme les autres - list of Black Sessions