Portrait

Caravan Palace, jazz under electroshock

"Chronologic", the new album of the Caravan Palace training. © Universal Music

09/02/2019

An ambassador for electro swing, the French team has been winning a huge success in France and especially abroad for more than 10 years. But the Parisian group does not want to be locked in one genre and tries to transplant all styles of jazz to electro.

Originally, there are three friends, fans of jazz and electro. Arnaud Vial plays the guitar and meets Hugues Payen, violinist, during their studies in journalism school. Charles Delaporte, a high school friend from Arnaud, remembers: "I bought a double bass to be able to play with them, we were all fans of gypsy jazz, and in 2005, my brother, who was a television editor, asked to create a soundtrack for dumb porn movies from the 1920s, we tried to mix hip-hop rhythms, jazz guitar and violin riffs, and the result was exciting! "

The project was never released, but the three friends immediately understand that they have something original, which reminds them of the title of Mr. Scruff Get a Move on (1999). Either the alliance of opposites: retro and contemporary, analog and digital, acoustic and electronic. They like Django Reinhardt , but also more current artists: Aphex Twin or Squarepusher for Hugues, Shlomo or Gorillaz for Charles, Arnaud looks for hip-hop.

Electro swing

In 1994 already, first crossings more or less successful had been attempted by the Danish rapper Lucas or the Dutch Doop. Ten years later, the Austrian Parov Stellar creates his Etage Noir Recording label and makes himself known with electro swing sounds. He asks Caravan Palace to publish an album on his label, to no avail.

Arnaud, Charles and Hugues give themselves 6 months to compose and record a model to present to Parisian record companies. But they want to format or adapt their sound ... It's finally the director of the Café de la Danse, in Paris, who will produce their first album and their first concerts in this room near Bastille. Caravan Palace creates its MySpace page and receives a first message from a singer from Tours, Zoé Colotis, who joins the three friends during the recording of the first album, Caravan Palace , published in 2008.

United States

Even before this record, the success is at the rendezvous thanks to the MySpace platform: the group gives about fifty concerts in France and in Europe. A success confirmed by the sales of the first album which cumulates 150 000 sales. Olympia, Spring of Bourges, Solidays ... Caravan Palace tries the American adventure, Loïc Barrouk, of the Café de la Danse, organizes their first concerts across the Atlantic and each time loses a little less money. Americans love this ancient sound, which is part of their heritage, associated by these Frenchies with contemporary sounds. The electro swing is attracting all over the world, with for example The Mojo Radio Gang of Parov Stellar or We No Speak Americano in 2010. The craze for Caravan Palace is not denied, it is not a question of ephemeral musical mode. Antoine Toustou (machines and trombone), joins the three composers and the singer to design the second album, Panic , published in 2012.

purists

They are the first surprised of their success, with this new style far from the verse-chorus variety format. But it's a universal genre, sung in English, that can please both electro and jazz fans. Glastonbury, Coachella ... they perform in major foreign festivals and entrust the organization of their 150 concerts by tour to the American giant Live Nation.

Charles remembers: "Our second concert, in 2007, was at the Django Reinhardt festival near Paris, and all day long we were stressed to play in front of gypsy guitar purists, but we did not receive any tomatoes. the reception has been very good, and since then we have played in other jazz festivals - where we are seen as rockers - and in rock festivals - where we are perceived as coming from jazz. " With the risk of not appealing to the purists of electro or jazz, for whom it is neither quite nor quite the other.

The five members of the group spent more than a year in their Paris studios to give birth to a successor to the album <I ° _ ° I> (250,000 copies), under the influence of house and bass music. Their fourth opus, Chronologic also connects to soul or rhythm'n'blues. The "old school" robot on each cover will also be on stage alongside the seven musicians. Charles explains: "Most often everyone composes in his studio, we communicate our ideas and our sounds by e-mail.If we have an answer within two minutes, it's a good sign.The arrangements and the mix are done in my What we are interested in is the vintage sound, the sound of the sound, and today we are moving away from the swing so as not to go around in circles. " They are more electro jazz than electro swing now, with a festive energy to discover especially on stage.

Caravan Palace Chronologic (Universal Music) 2019

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By: Nicolas Dambre

Caravan Palace

album - Electro - Jazz - France