E-Mail This Article to a Friend Label du jour A Francophile record label grows in Boston BY DAVID DAY

When ALEXANDRA ROUSSEAU arrived in Boston from France with two suitcases and a dream 12 years ago, she was not impressed. "All I could think about was, ‘When can I leave?’," she recalls with a hearty laugh over the din at the B-Side Lounge, "but it got a lot better." Part of what got better is her two-year-old indie label Chez Moi ("My House"), a labor of love designed to bring a little bit of home with her — or, more to the point, to give overlooked French artists a foothold in America. "I am trying to be an ambassador of French music," she says, in a voice still heavy with accent. "I’ve lived here 12 years and I miss France."

Rousseau came to Boston College to get her MBA but soon found her thirst for new music overtaking all else, thanks in part to the influence of BC’s acclaimed student radio station. "I got groomed through WZBC. All the music, all the choices. I absorbed a lot." She cites East River Pipe, Red House Painters, and local legends Buffalo Tom as some of her earliest discoveries. She maintains a cherished show Friday mornings on ’ZBC called "Melody du Jour" and hosts the monthy "Ointment" night at Cambridge’s River Gods, which amounts to ’ZBC’s version of a Top 20 countdown.

Out of those experiences grew Chez Moi, which celebrates the release of its second album with a listening party Friday at River Gods. Furtive Furies is a blissful electronic-pop project from a husband-and-wife duo called Margo who’re from Nantes, on the French Atlantic coast. "I drove from Normandy for three hours to meet them," says Rousseau, who still visits her homeland a couple times a year. "The album is a nice balance of two parts, it’s like going to a ballroom." Previously the label gave a US release to Fragments from a group called the Cars Are the Stars, and Rousseau has plans to release four more discs before reassessing Chez Moi’s prospects. "As a label it’s important to be consistent, and it’s not a hobby thing, it’s something I want to grow. I told [Brainwashed.com Web master] Jon Whitney and he said, ‘Either you have a lot of cash or you’re out of your mind,’ but it’s a way of fulfilling a need I have in me right now."

What Chez Moi lacks in size it makes up in energy and commitment. "That’s what I can offer as a one-person label. I will take all the time and effort to follow up myself." Rousseau, who’s lived in Boston, Arlington, Brookline, and elsewhere, keeps her motives simple. "I love the music, as trivial as it sounds. It feels pretty good, but only if it does well. If it doesn’t, I feel like I haven’t done a proper job." This Friday’s listening party will also include DJ sets from Rousseau and from the celebrated local duo MATTERS AND DUNAWAY, who are bubbling up themselves.

In the worldwide techno picture there’s no hotter country than Sweden, thanks in part to visionaries such as ANDREAS TILLIANDER, who plays Wednesday at the revived Phoenix Landing. Tilliander is being delivered by the Unlocked Groove brain trust, which you may remember from these pages. He’ll be playing live, so instead of his well-known microhouse, you can expect the sweeping, chunky grooves of the new Scandinavian sound . . . Chicago house rep ROY DAVIS JR. is almost synonymous with the phat beats of the Second City and has a worldwide reputation for rocking dance floors to the core. He’s recorded for the Roule imprint — the label of Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter — as well as for Peacefrog and Bombay. He plays a set Friday at Red Line in Harvard Square; expect tracks from his most recent full-length, Chicago Forever, which has drawn accolades from just about everywhere.

David Day spins Thursdays at Middlesex Lounge and Fridays at Enormous Room | circuits@squar3.com.