SOUND PELLEGRINO THERMAL TEAM'S GLORIOUS RETURN FROM QUEBEC, BY SIMON-PIERRE GINGRAS Sound Pellegrino's mysterious producer, a free but harmful dose of LSD, one step further in Rob's journey, The Sixpack ...

Chateau Marmont, sans accent circonflexe, ou quatre amis d'enfance sauvés par les synthétiseurs. Leur musique tient de Stand By Me, Solaris et Logan's Run : les tribulations de quatre enfants perdus dans un futur pseudo-idyllique, dominé par les désirs confus d'une mach...ine gigantesque. Il existe, quelque part dans le temps, une poche culturelle où Space et Jean-Michel Jarre partagent les charts avec The Alan Parsons Project et Francis Lai. C'est là que vivent et travaillent Chateau Marmont, dont le nom évoque non pas les gloires ternies du vieil Hollywood mais le romantisme seventies d'une Citroën DX croisant sur les berges du lac Léman. Là-bas, les hommes portent tous des trench-coats, cols relevés, et les chignons des femmes se défont en vagues mordorées. Ils ont remixé Poney Poney, Koko Von Napoo, Midnight Juggernauts, La Roux, Heartsrevolution, Ladyhawke et Peter, Bjorn & John, mais Solar Apex est leur premier disque. De l'instrumental "Maison Klaus", écrit pour le bal de fin d'année d'un lycée idéal aux synthés androïdes et voix machiniques de "Diane", de l'optimisme languide et californien de "Anything & Everywhere" à l'immense "Solar Apex", hymne à la recherche d'une nation, de préférence interstellaire, la musique utopique ne s'est jamais mieux portée. -------------------------------------------- Four Frenchmen, childhood friends, united in their love of synth music: dare we say it’s a tale of mystery and imagination, of friendship and self-discovery? Chateau Marmont’s story is half Stand By Me, half Solaris, half Logan’s Run and, yes, it doesn’t add up. They’ve known each other since forever, as children stranded in a hostile landscape dominated by hypertrophied bullies and pathetic louts. They found themselves and each other through synthetic music, so bright and remote in its promises of infinity and eternal bliss, so hard, cold and disturbing when its outlook turns dystopian. Chateau Marmont remixed Poney Poney, Koko Von Napoo, Midnight Juggernauts and most recently La Roux, Heartsrevolution and Ladyhawke. Solar Apex is their first record. They come from a time when people still believed in the future. A time when the proto French Touch, helmed by Space and Jean-Michel Jarre, dominated the airwaves. The Alan Parsons Project and classic French soundtracks (think Francis Lai) still radiate through their music. And their name is resonant not of faded glories, awkward suicides, scuffed gold stars and velvet-roped junkies, but of widescreen romance, vintage melancholia and studied postures.

Pretty simple story, really. You’ve heard it before. We have this label, Institubes, and we’ve been deep in the trenches for a minute now. Five years. The aforementioned trenches are located in Paris, so let’s not sweat the mud and grime–there are none. Instead, our tre...nches exhibit a certain majesty of decay: Paris is one of the most elegantly decrepit cities of the world. It is lying there, somewhat immobile, certainly comfortable in its sometimes grandiose, sometimes laughable celebration of its gilded past. We’ve always been fond of our city. Even in love with it. But it’s never been exciting. Paris is gay, not rousing--no pun intended--we were too young to fully experience the first French Touch, too involved in rap to care about the second. I wanted to live in London or maybe Bristol, in New York, places where pop epiphanies happened on a daily basis, or in Tokyo, where you could be a real, ambitious nerd, a world-class geek tyrant. Some of us were into classic US rap from both coasts and indie polysyllabic backpack stuff, some into semi-mainstream French hip hop, some were even rapping, producing, recording. Some others loved Warp-type electronics, Detroit techno and Miami Bass. Some went to shows were everything was experimental, from the ear-splitting avant-racket to the drugs, to the venue, to the girls’ haircuts. Most of us were bowled over when R’n’B turned digital. Timbaland reframed our minds in the most radical way. And the Internet. Efil 4 P2P. Institubes started out as a way for us to get stuff out. At first, it was a cute little club between card-carrying friends. Our little hut in the trees, deep in the woods, where the noise bothered no one. The workings of “the industry”, what you were supposed to embrace or avoid--we didn’t have a clue. We still do not know what we’re doing, really. Sometimes we stumble on something cool, sometimes we just stumble. We have a clear populist streak, for which we won’t apologize: to our ears, big corporate hits are not guilty pleasures, just pleasures. When we throw a party, we want people to dance. But let’s not kid ourselves: for most of us, pop is an acquired taste, a second language. We’re wired for music first and fun second. So I have this little theory: what makes our music relevant and worthwile is exactly this. Our best records carry at once our reluctance and willingness to get down and party like there’s no tomorrow (even though we seem to be doing that an awful lot). Anyway. We'll try and entertain. The whole crew--Bobmo, Cuizinier, Curses!, Das Glow, David Rubato, Jean Nipon, High Powered Boys, Midnight Juggernauts, MSK, Orgasmic, Para One, So Fresh Squad, Surkin, Tacteel--will do some little song-and-dance numbers just for you. Welcome to Vrai Paris.

Bobmo, Chateau Marmont, Curses, Das Glow, David Rubato, Jean Nipon, Orgasmic, Para One, Rob, Surkin, Tacteel, TekiLatex...