Amadou & Mariam met in 1975 while attending the Institute for Young Blind in Bamako (where they continue to play an annual benefit concert). Influenced by the records of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd as well as traditional African music, the couple began working as a duo in 1983. Their transition from world music stages to rock festival headliners came with 2005’s Manu Chao-produced ‘Dimanche à Bamako,’ one of the best-selling African albums of all time.
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With the experimental warmth of ’60s French films and the pizzicato flavor of horizontal hip-hop, Simon Green‘s Bonobo project established the welcome niche of a pretension-free, post-party intellectual chillout upon the release of his full-length debut in 2000. Since then, his sound and scope have expanded dramatically, with his sophisticated compositions and arrangements incorporating live instrumentation and encompassing influences ranging from jazz, house, folk, and soul to African, Asian, and Middle Eastern styles of music.
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A Pianist, composer, arranger and musical director for the likes of Phoenix and Sebastien Tellier, the charismatic and talented Christophe Chassol gave birth to an unclassifiable artistic piece. His compositions articulate voices, music, sounds, images onto new audiovisual objects. The result has a name : "ultrascore".
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Dätcha Mandala is a power trio. Founded in 2009, the band’s members include Nicolas Sauvey (lead vocals, bass and mouth organ), Jérémy Saigne (guitar and back-up vocals) and Jean-Baptiste Mallet (drums and back-up vocals). With influences ranging from Led Zeppelin to the beatles, it’s no surprise that the lads count such bands as Black Sabbath, Kyuss, Tool, Black angels, Queens of the stone age, BRMC, AC/DC, the doors, hendrix and more, amongst their growing list of influential vibes. When asked, they tend to describe themselves as a psychedelic rock band engulfed in heavy blues.
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Delgres is retrieved memories of blended songs, dances and tears of the long lost drifting souls of New-Orleans, where the blues get loud with the sound of rust, struggle and hope. Like a broken barrel of guadeloupean rum flooding the Mississipi delta, Delgres gets everyone drunk with music. So drunk with music that Africans, Indians, poor whites and all the others don’t really know where to stand anymore. So they dance! They dance to that ragged blues!
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Jerky like whiplash, dirty as grease and hot as the desert, « Dirty Deep » will mark you like a red-hot iron Now, as a trio, they’re driving France wild with their modern juke-joint blues, which is faithful to tradition yet grungy; The effect is something between dance and shock-therapy.
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In just 2 years, Elida Almeida has made a name for herself performing at world music venues in Europe, Africa and North America. The unknown Elida won huge acclaim for her first album and the song Nta Konsigui (2.7 million views on YouTube), her warm, smooth voice conveying a powerful exultation. On her second album, Kebrada (named for the village where she grew up), she asserts her African identity, seasoning her Cabo Verdean beats – batuque, funaná, coladera and tabanka – with Latino energy. Her fiery temperament and joie de vivre do nothing to undermine the social criticism she expresses in her nostalgic ballads tinged with pop.
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While the sensational Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Gregory Porter cut his teeth singing and emulating his idol, Nat King Cole, he has a sound that’s all his own: In the past, he’s been praised by The New York Times for his unique approach to jazz, soul, and gospel
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Israeli-born, Brooklyn-based trumpeter & composer Itamar Borochov connects lower Manhattan to North Africa, modern Israel and ancient Bukhara, celebrating traces of the divine that he finds in elegant sophistication, Middle Eastern tradition and downhome blues. Borochov brings a unique sound with him wherever he goes. Deeply immersed in the jazz tradition, Borochovʼs search for his personal roots resulted in an ever-expanding love for Arab and Pan-African musical sensibilities – a natural palette for a trumpeter-composer raised in Jaffa, an integrated Muslim-Jewish-Christian city.
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Year after year, Joakim has gathered experiences that confirm his global vision of music and explored many facets of the musical spectrum: a musician with five albums under his belt; an outstanding DJ with a huge musical spectrum; a label founder and manager (Tigersushi and the recent vinyl-only Crowdspacer imprint); a self-taught graphic designer (he designs his record covers and most of the label’s artworks); a producer; a high-profile remixer (Antena, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Todd Terje etc…); a fashion enthusiast, a sound designer for catwalks (Chanel, Margiela, Balenciaga); and a step into contemporary art, working on Camille Henrot's installations and videos (who won the Silver Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale with the video Grosse Fatigue) or making his own sound installations (Gwangju Biennale in 2014 curated by Jessica Morgan).
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Juniore is a Parisian boyish-girl‐band, brain child of Anna Jean, that gives sweet retro a modern twist. Summoning the ghosts of Françoise Hardy and Brigitte Bardot, as much as the B52’s, The Delmonas, Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, Nouvelle Vague films, Carpenter and Polanski’s horror cinema, Juniore mixes it all together for their own spicy recipe. With her soft and hypnotic voice, Anna recounts tales of loveless mornigs and sleepless nights.
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Raised in atmosphere bursting with passion for music, Louisahhh started singing and playing instruments at an early age before discovering a passion for DJing. Starting at age 17, sneaking into New York City clubs with fake Ids, Louisahhh started to make a name for herself in the New York underground clubs during the years 2000. Topping the charts with a series of high projects with several artists as Danny Daze and Brodinski, Louisahhh has quickly risen as one of the most coming woman artists within the techno scenes thanks to her voice, a unique style, and explosive DJ sets.
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Matmatah have released 4 albums from 1998 to 2007. They rapidly became a major force on the French rock scene, their albums selling like hot cakes, backed up by sold out tours. After more than a thousand concerts in Europe, India, Australia, Canada, and more than 1.3 million album sold, they disbanded in 2007. Ten years later, the idea to reform took shape. It was time to go back to writing new material. When the group officially announced their comeback in September the tickets for the concerts were snapped up before they had time to announce the release of their new album, Plates Coutures. After 80 sold out shows in France, Belgium, Switzerland and South Korea, in front of a 450.000 person audience in 2017, Matmatah is finishing their 1 ½ year tour by doing a couple of gigs in North America and Europe during the summer 2018, before getting back to their studio to work on new projects.
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Born in Canada to Haitian parents and now based in France, Laveaux’s latest project Radyo Siwèl explores her Creole ancestry adding Haitian kompa guitar, calypso, and soca to the mix and giving her rootsy sophistication a definitive—and delectable—Caribbean twist. Radyo Siwèl is where a proud but often tragic past meets the promise of a better future.
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Michelle Blades is a Mexican-Panamanian artist born into a family salsa musicians. When she was 6 her family moved to Miami to avoid the violent political situation in the country. She grew up around cumbia, salsa, dembow and son while moving from recording studio to studio with her family. In 2018 she will release her next LP recorded with her band in an analog studio in the south of France, melting psychedelic compositions with spaced out baroque-y folk arrangements into the sounds of a restless wanderer.
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Piers Faccini has recorded and collaborated over the years with numerous musicians and singers including Ballake Sissoko, Vincent Segal, Ben Harper, Rokia Traore and Ibrahim Maalouf amongst others. As well as producing his own albums, Faccini has also produced several albums for other artists, most notably Ela by Brazilian cellist and singer Dom La Nena, Northern Folk by Jenny Lysander and Terre de Mon Poeme by Yelli Yelli.
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“What Im in search of is exceptions”, jazz pianist Jean-Michel Pilc explains. His new live concert recording, Essential, due out May 10, 2011 on Motéma Music, intimately captures an exceptional series of improvisations on both brand-new and classic themes. While there are dazzling passages here that demand Pilc’s formidable technique, there’s also a striking simplicity, directness and an irrepressible passion. Blending vividly lyrical passages with otherworldly, reflective interludes, unexpected dissonances and playful digressions.
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Polo & Pan was born under the stars in 2012, shortly after there orbital collision of two satellites : Polocorp & Peter Pan. Both are active members of the Tete d’Affiche DJ Agency and residents at le Baron. It’s behind the decks that they met and discovered a common interest in fusion of genres. With such wide influences, it’s hard to pin down Polo & Pan’s musical style, but it’s quite probable that crossing there path will open a window to the cosmos.
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Son Little, the singer and songwriter born Aaron Livingston, is the easygoing musical alchemist of our time. He is a conjurer, and much like those of his heroes Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix, his songs are deconstructions of the diaspora of American R&B. Through his music, Son Little deftly weaves different eras of the sound—blues, soul, gospel, rock and roll—through his own unique vision, never forced, always smooth, each note a tributary on the flowing river of rhythm and blues.
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St Germain' is the stage name of Ludovic Navarre and based on the story of the Count of St. Germain, a mysterious and eccentric man from the 18th century who claimed to be several hundred years old. St Germain is among the leading French masters to have established the 'French Touch': the 'French Traxx EP' and 'Motherland EP', both released in 1993, introduced his style: a mix of deep house, jazz and lounge; sampling and real instruments playing side to side.
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Lyrics in English and French, French and Mexican accordion, klezmer violin, warm and joyous rhythms of reggae, ska and Latin American, the sensual voice of jazz and French chanson. The music can be heard as an acoustic trio in the intimate bistros of New York and Paris, as well as the electric big band in venues and festivals around the world.
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With his works for, inter alia, - Colorado, Praa, Maximilien -… Timsters shapes a very modern sound. A singular one that is made of differents genres mixed together, a synthesis of electronic, urban and pop music. Beyond this eclectic influences, Timsters made a veritable family team in his label - Elephant & Castle -, a place where humans is the matrix.
So, no surprise to constat that it’s the main dimension that come out of his songwriting. Sensitive and personal tracks that he let grew patiently and permit him to drop the masks. A record like a gradation where shades are in the foreground and where cocoon-like production welcoming obsessive and limpid melodies.
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Singer/songwriter Vianney performs using his voice, guitar, and loop pedals and layers to generate backing vocals and percussion. At 24 years old he won the award for performing artist of the year at the "Victoires de la musique 2016", one year after having been named in the revelations of the "Victoires de la musique 2015". His debut album Idées blanches was certified platinum. His second album was released on 25 November 2016[3] and was certified double platinum.
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Yuksek is a composer and producer who emerged from the French electronic scene. After releasing several singles on many international labels, douzens of remixs for the most obscure indie band to Lady Gaga and two albums, Away From the Sea (Barclay, 2009) and Living on the Edge of Time (Barclay, 2011), Yuksek traveled the world touring and collaborating with many international artists. In 2013, he created his own label, Partyfine, confirming the unique Yuksek sound: a clever mix of indie pop, futuristic disco and pure electro.
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Surfing on Saint-Germain-des-Prés? Hippy Existentialism? It seems Zimmer can do the tricks and make the Eiffel Tower face the Pacific Ocean. Raised between France and California, Zimmer combines the west coast carefree attitude with a twist of Parisian chic. His art of DJing might be the best way to experience the magic power of Zimmer: he moves the crowd on a journey and build it up like a Nouvelle Vague movie crafted in Hollywood. Zimmer is blockbuster DJ with a brain – and a soul.
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