Features

How We Approach a Feature

A feature at CD-ROM Musique usually starts with a question rather than a press release. Why does a certain sound keep resurfacing in Paris clubs? What happens to a band's songs between the rehearsal room and the stage? How did a scene that once lived on burned CDs and forum threads find its way onto streaming playlists? Starting from a question keeps the writing curious and stops it from becoming promotion dressed up as journalism.

From there, we spend time with the subject. That can mean listening back through a full discography, attending several shows rather than one, or sitting in on a soundcheck to understand how a performer actually works. Where it helps the story, we place an artist within a wider context: the labels, venues, collectives and earlier records that made their music possible.

Words and pictures together

Our photo essays are not illustrations bolted onto a finished text. Photographers and writers plan pieces together, so the images carry part of the narrative: the crowd at the front of a small venue, the clutter of a home studio, the quiet moments after a set. We favour sequences that reward slow looking, in the spirit of the interactive, multimedia music titles of the early digital era.

Paris as a lens, not a limit

Many of our stories begin in Paris, a city with a long history in chanson, jazz, electronic music and hip-hop, and a dense network of clubs, concert halls and record shops. Our guide to places follows that map. Yet the features themselves travel wherever the music leads, from regional scenes in France to artists who have never played here.

Where to go next

If a feature leaves you wanting a verdict on a specific record, our reviews offer shorter, focused takes. Older long reads remain available in the archive, where earlier pieces sit alongside newer ones and show how the scenes we cover have changed over time.