General Elektriks - Parker Street
(CD/Digital) Elektriks Collection/Discograph (Europe/Japan)/Quannum Projects (North America) 2011-10-18

General Elektriks is the brainchild of French vintage keyboard player/ composer/ singer/ producer Hervé Salters. Blending keyboard funk, oldschool pop and hip hop beats in his home studio in the San Francisco Bay Area, Salters has released 3 albums as General Elektriks: Cliquety Kliqk (2003), Good City For Dreamers (2009) and this new one, Parker Street(2011). RV quickly became the go-to Parisian for "vintage sound", scoring session work with Femi Kuti, -M-, and DJ Mehdi, among others, before leaving in 1999 to relocate to the US. In 2009 he was also featured in the classic hip hop compilation selected by Paris DJs alumni Djouls & Loik, It's The New Hip Hop Thing Volume 1. The new album Parker Street was released mid October by cuting-edge French label Discograph in Europe and Japan and by Quannum Projects in North America. Parker Street is the most successful and most dense of General Eletriks albums, filled with multiple influences and perfused by the energy and experience of live concerts.

Antonionian - Antonionian
(CD/Digital) Elektriks Collection/Discograph France 2011-03-21

Antonionian is Oakland's Jordan Dalrymple - drumcrusher, beatslayer, multi-instrumentalist and erstwhile keeper of the Subtle sound. As one of that cult-hallowed sextet's chief producers (along with Adam "Doseone" Drucker and Jeffrey "Jel" Logan), Jordan had a heavy hand in crafting those inimitable electro rap-gone-Kraut scores. But with Antonionian, the longtime sideman who also plays with French pop act General Elektriks and experimental supergroup 13 & God, steps out from behind the curtain to carve out his very own post-everything avant-funk. Jordan's is a propulsive and dreamlike sound that finds him bending voice, electronics and various acoustics to his unique ends - something that nods to the dark art-rock of London archetypes This Heat, "Paisley Park"-era Prince and contemporaries TV On the Radio, albeit channeled through one man.

Pigeon John - Dragon Slayer
(CD/Digital) Quannum USA 2010-10-12, Other Tongues Australia 2010-11-19, Elektriks Collection/Discograph France 2011-03-07

Los Angeles-based indie rapper/singer/songwriter/rocker and funny man Pigeon John is back with Dragon Slayer, out in the US via Quannum Projects, and to be released in France through Discograph on march 7th 2011. Dragon Slayer follows up the critically acclaimed Pigeon John…And The Summertime Pool Party and houses the signature Pigeon John humor and witty rhymes, but with more rock and pop sounds. With the aid of keyboard wonder General Elektriks' Hervé Salters, Pigeon John produced the whole record, including, for the first time, recording and chopping up his own instrumentation rather than just flipping samples and banging on an MPC. We'll do a mix about the man in the coming weeks, in order to introduce those who still haven't heard him to the cool sounds of Pigeon John...

Various - It's The New Hip Hop Thing Volume 1
Selection & sleeve notes by Djouls (TIMEC/Paris DJs) with the help of Loik Dury (Kraked/Paris DJs)
(CD) Vibrations VIBRATIONSHIPHOP01, 2009-02-23

Hip hop is a culture that's became mainstream. But indie labels and artists still appear and spread everywhere, more than ever. Filled with jazz, funk, soul, rock, samples, scratches, breakbeats, rhymes, "It's the new hip hop thing" is an 2009 snapshot of the kaleidoscopic panorama of current productions. AND it's selected by Djouls & Loik, founders and activists of parisdjs.com...

General Elektriks - Good City For Dreamers
(CD) Audio Kitchen / Discograph, 2009-02-23

When Hervé "RV" Salters, the man behind General Elektriks, released Cliquety Kliqk in 2005, the record was immediately lauded for its quirky ingenuity and the way it toyed between hip-hop and pop, long before artists like Gnarls Barkley and Santogold hit the airwaves. In thinking about his next album, Hervé decided he wanted to make a record that paid homage to the traditions of his idols before him, but he wasn't interested in just another throwback. He wanted to continue to make progressive art-soul that said what he wanted it to say and defended the idea of not feeling tied down by rules, even at the risk of falling flat on your face. Using this Young Americans-esque appoach, with Good City for Dreamers, Salters has crafted a record that perfectly blends the hard-edged funk of the Meters with the contemplativeness of Caetano Veloso, a record that shows off enough of RV's own style - those vintage keys, the perfectly situated pauses, the seamless intra-song transitions, the messily melodious distortion - that it's able to explore a variety of genres without it ever sounding disjointed.

Various - "Future Sounds of Jazz 10"
(Compost)

L'effort fait sur le packaging vaut le coup car en fait, rien que pour sa pochette psychédélique l'achat du disque est chaudement recommandé, comme dirait l'autre! Mais sinon? Comment ça? Le volume 10 d'une série de compilations qui vaudrait réellement le coup?! Et pourtant c'est vrai. Depuis le début de la série des "Future Sounds Of Jazz", en 1994, le label Compost fait du super boulot. Mais là on tape dans l'excellence. Cet instantané 2005, vu depuis l'allemagne, du meilleur de l'électro /breakbeat /dub /downtempo /tech-house /nu-jazz (bref de la musique électronique jazz qui se danse) est imparable. La dose habituelle d'un tiers d'inédits ou de remixes inédits au rendez-vous, et le tout est mixé par Michael Reinboth avec Beanfield (Michael Mettke et Jan Krause des Poets Of Rhythm), for your listening pleasure.

Liens :
Download MP3 Sound Samples sur Compost-records.com
Sinon, les downloads mp3 du label sur Compost-records.com

Tracklisting :
01. Fred Everything feat. The New Mastersounds - Elevate (Maurice Fulton Remix)
02. Povo - Uam Uam (Moonstarr Remix) *
03. Ricardo Villalobos - Fools Garden (Black Conga)
04. Hot Chip - Playboy
05. Per Cussion - Manhatten Jungle
06. Syclops - Fairlight Sunrise *
07. Gabriel Ananda - Süssholz (Ben Mono's Low Level Mix) *
08. Metaboman - Role For Kale
09. Origami - First Note *
10. Cal Tjader - Los Bandidos (Michael Reinboth Remix) *
11. General Electrics - Terms And Conditions Apply (The Entinty Remix) *
12. Sebastien Tellier - La Ritournelle *
* previously unreleased on CD
...

General Electrics - "Cliquety Kliqk"
(Audio Kitchen/Bleu Electric 2003)

Quand la production française se met au niveau de l'international, on ne peut que le souligner haut et fort (il faut un gros Stabilo et un grand bras très musclé). Cocorico!! Bon, en fait, le General Electrics en question, alias Hervé Salters, est franco-britannique, et vit désormais à San Francisco où il s'est fait pote avec le collectif de DJ Shadow, Quannum. Ceci pouvant peut-être expliquer un peu mieux cela...
Hervé on l'avait connu aux claviers au sein du groupe Vercoquin (avec Thierry Stremler, Sébastien Martel, Christophe Minck et Cyril Aveque), entre 1990 et 1998 précisément. On a pu aussi le repérer à la même époque avec le Magic Malik Orchestra, Sinclair ou  M. En 1999 il participe à l'album de Femi Kuti, à la tournée qui suit en 2000, puis en 2001 il sort un album electro-pop sous le nom de Betamax (avec Juliette, jeune chanteuse londonienne), sur le label parisien Bloom. Il se met alors à collaborer avec Dj Mehdi pour les productions de ce dernier chez Virgin (bof...), et en parallèle il compose quelques délires réjouissants et jouissifs (et inversement) d'electro-funk jazzo-hip-hopesque, alliage de sons issus de claviers vintages (Clavinet, Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Hammond, Roland SH101), de wah-wah roots et de technologies actuelles (= produit avec un ordinateur). Ayant déménagé à Berkeley dans la baie de San Francisco, il y rencontre donc la bande des hiphopeux furieux de Quannum, avec qui il collabore pour l'album de Blackalicious "Blazing Arrow" (recommandé), qui finiront par lui renvoyer l'ascenseur avec quelques featurings de Lateef sur son album à lui... le "Cliquety Kliqk" en question ici. Espèrons simplement que ce disque ne sera que le premier d'une série d'eccentricités hip-hop-electro-jazz indispensables façon Money Mark, Dj Shadow ou Dj Tos...

links :
[compost-records.com] Téléchargez le MP3 de "Take you out tonight (feat. Lateef)"
[label-bleu.com] Le site du label en France
...