Saturday 6 November 2010

a few things from... Cosmo Vitelli


Cosmo Vitelli and myself have followed some kind of parallel path over the years. I think he may well be, as I am, an indie kid at heart, as testified his first productions during the second french touch wave... If he was not part of the Parisian rave club/scene, that probably, one, saved him from a loads of musical conformisms ('I have to do a 'club track') and, two, whilst we were staying up for days, he was perfecting an already impressive (some say 'obsessive) producing 'technique'. You could consider him as your perfect 'obscure disco' geek (in a way he is) but he is much more than that, a true musical fanatic, 'renaissance style': no genres is forbidden, no style will stay unexplored. I may not always have been fan of his productions/releases (to my charge, I used to consider the blackstrobe remix we did for him as dreadful and, just listening to it, it sounds less dated than 80 % of our other works).Over the last couple of years though, Cosmo and his crew (the I'm a Cliche label, his Bot'Ox project) have grown to be amongst the best and most forward thinking french (actually cross 'french) outlet out there. He is one of those rare people you can talk movies or books rather than trying to impress with your Dissident (just an example) white label.
Oh and I nearly forgot: someone who did an edit of Johnny Guitar's main title has my eternal esteem.

Cosmo was kind enough to give us this amazing piece:

STRAIGHT SHOOTER-MY TIME YOUR TIME (COSMO VITELLI EDIT)


A few words:

who is your forgotten hero?
Joe Caligula

what is the motto painted on your fighter plane?
Dennis Wise

what makes you really angry?
Current french political, social and cultural situation, its governement and generalised corruption. Sorry for my lack of humour about this.

and your final words?
Is it the French press ?


His playlist deals with 'records from the times I did not know anything about what I was listening to'.



Talk Talk "Laughing Stock"(1991)

Possibly my fave record ever. Full of silence, breathe, air…A magic record wich streches the time.

Hugh Mundell : « Africa must be free by 1983 » (1978)
One of the first records I bought while I was a kid, at a second hand record store next to my home in the south of France.
Hugh Mundell died in a car accident in…1983. I’m less sure about the freedom of Africa.

Oran' Juice' Jones : « The Rain" (1986)
The Beastie Boys first album brought me to Hip-hop and Def Jam. Oran ‘Juice ‘Jone album s arrived at the record store of my middle size hometown and for some reason, I bought it.
It instantly became a hit in my bedroom.

New Fast Austomatic Daffodils "Pigeonhole" (1990)
My personal baggy fave (everyone has its own, right? No?).
First CD bought ever, I have seen them live many times in the UK when I was student.
Still a pretty cool record XX years later (and sometimes, I still play the Big – Baka remix)

Mercury Rev : Yerself is Steam
Mercury Rev’s first album. Psych shoegaze ? lofi prog rock ?
They were very first, maybe the only band I wish I could be part of.
Pure masterpiece.


more proof of his impeccable taste and attitude there: http://www.botoxmusic.com/blog/

4 comments:

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  2. Cosmo rocks, really! its edit too

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  3. Cosmo's Vidéo LP (1998??) is such an underrated piece of work - fantastic throughout yet, sadly, I've never met anybody else who's even heard of it.

    I've only seen him DJ once, on a bill with Alex Gopher & EDC, one of my favourite nights out ever!

    P.S. Laughing Stock/Pigeonhole/Yerself Is Steam = YESYESYES. x

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