Motorbass

The Nineties have just begun, and in Paris's most sought-after and exclusive clubs there's an unusual buzz in the air. House music arriving from Chicago and the first stirrings of eurodance dominate the dancefloors, effectively fighting over an increasingly demanding crowd, tired of the pompous eighties sound and particularly eager to be swept away by new club currents, new electrifications of rhythm. Philippe Zdar is, in those years, a young dj-producer who had arrived some time before in the French capital from a remote village in the Alps to broaden his musical horizons. The young man has recently met Hubert Blanc-Francard, aka Boom Bass, and together they decide to produce hip-hop musician MC Solaar, later giving birth to the duo La Funk Mob, which a few years later would evolve into the acclaimed Cassius. Étienne Bernard Marie de Crécy, known simply as Étienne de Crécy, is instead a sound engineer from Lyon who landed on the banks of the Seine after having frequented the electronic circuits of Marseille and Versailles, and founded the label Disques Solid together with Alex Gopher, as well as having played with the band Orange alongside Gopher himself and the two Air members, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel.

Zdar and de Crécy meet and quickly begin to size each other up, working out a project that would definitively change the fate of French disco-music, and of that thing soon to be dubbed French touch: Motorbass. Between 1992 and 1993 they produce two EPs, "1st EP" and "Thransphunk", both distillations of primordial techno and house with an elegant, concise touch. Theirs is an entirely new formula, damn fresh, one that partly departs from the American reference points, naive and elegant just enough to catch the attention of both the public and industry insiders. Tracks like "Visine" and "Open Sesame" would leave a notable mark on the French electronic scene. Percussion barely brushed, never intrusive, underpins a tasteful lounge framework, decidedly far from Chicago's soul warmth and tremendously close to the jazzy echoes of Paris's historic clubs. It's the prelude to "Pansoul", Motorbass's first and only LP, produced in 1996 for the label of the same name and primary keeper of a sound destined in those very years to take over the planet with the rise of the likes of Daft Punk (mentioned in the credits), Air, Dimitri From Paris, St Germain, Bob Sinclar and so on.

Mocking glitches, blips and clicks poured out with velvet gloves and a rhythmic sway as compelling as it is soothing and enveloping fill the space, setting up a proper party in which the reconciling aesthetic element is no longer a pair of baggy jeans with a tight tank top, but a tuxedo with a bow tie. The die is cast with extreme refinement. Solitary moans and sinuous beats trace new boundary lines. New atmospheres in which to pour equally new fascinations of groove.

Low lights and a properly lounge pace define the opening "Fabulous". Its slow, floating unfolding is just a warm invitation to take a seat before the party begins. The following "Ezio", with its four-to-the-floor kick proudly on display and sudden arpeggios that seem to descend from the sky, urges the first composed movements of the hips, perhaps carried out with a Martini in hand and a cigarette between the fingers. But it's only the beginning. "Flying Fingers" flies high, very high. A steady beat and a sudden change of rhythm give rise to a hypnotic, seductive dance complete with a final scratch, a reminder of Philippe's love for black music.

Of an entirely different cloth is the shadowy "Les Ondes", in which the reference dub-house matrix resurfaces over garage textures and undulating breaks. At its center, the ecstatic theme of "Fabulous" finds its rightful fulfillment from the second minute of "Neptune" onward, in a succession of minimal keyboards, female invocations and epic house restarts. At the same time, "Wan Dance" grabs attention through the exhortation "Baby wanna dance?", put forward by a muse in heat complete with a soft, erotic sax rounding out a funky bass and a kick drum as excited as it is skilled at changing direction depending on the rhythm to be softened.

What takes shape across the album's various tracks is essentially club music conceived with an exquisite touch and extreme grace. All of it combined with a deep understanding of groove. A production achievement capable of escaping the dead ends of the disco-flavored loop, often reinvigorating itself with jazz elements and narcotic dub contortions ("Genius").

"Pansoul" is ultimately a noble, stylish escape from the electronic turmoil of the period, one that will remain unrivaled, and one that will provide vital nourishment to an entertainment-oriented electronic music as refined as it is provocative. The unique, primordial testament — at times unjustly under-celebrated — of a touch that would leave its mark for years to come, not only in France but across the entire planet.

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04/01/2015