With co-productions and performances of major creations, such as ÉON this year or No Land in 2016, films in concert, concerts and duos, Olivier is now a household name at Les Tombées de la Nuit. It would therefore be unthinkable not to enjoy a live performance of this latest project, for the first time with the historic voice of KaS Product, American-born Mona Soyoc. From their first day of work and first recording session at Studio Caverne in Paris three years ago, it was written in the stars – these two were made to work together. Their music started off with live performances in a series of hypnotic and wild concerts, proving to any remaining doubters just how charismatic, technically competent and energetic this singer is. They then recorded twelve songs for their first album, Alive, which is utterly true to its name.
Their music is daring, fluid, hypnotic, organic, mysterious, wild yet also somehow controlled, in a blend of gothic trance and shamanic new wave, polar soul and dark wave, embarking on a journey of new musical experimentation and daring sound textures. The coming together of their two worlds is as much a collision as it is an encounter, like a strange and fascinating avant-garde film, somewhere between film noir and abstraction, a calm atmosphere and a wild explosion. It is a resolute success, with the live support of electro-acoustic artist Uriel Barthelemi on drums.
BIOGRAPHY
> OLIVIER MELLANO (France)
Olivier Mellano was born in Paris in 1971 and has worked as a musician, composer, improv musician, writer and guitarist in over fifty bands since the early 1990s. He is insatiable and incredibly prolific, alternating pop-rock projects and compositions for symphonic orchestras, with an ensemble of seventeen electric guitars, harpsichords, organs, voices and string quartets. He has accompanied Misossec, Dominique A, Françoiz Breut, Bed, Laetitia Shériff and Psykick Lyrikah, while also working on collective projects for the Île électrique, composing for dance, theatre and film, revisiting the melodies of Fauré (Baum, 2018), working with his bagad and Bredan Perry (No Land, 2017) and dabbling once again in pop noise with MellaNoisEscape (2018).
> MONA SOYOC (USA)
Singer and guitarist, Mona Soyoc, was born in Stamford, Connecticut (USA). She moved to France, playing in jazz clubs, and created the duo KaS Product in Nancy in 1980, alongside keyboard player Spatsz (Daniel Favre). This cult group from the French cold and dark wave scene is considered one of the forerunners of electrotrash, creating three albums before separating: Try Out (1982), By Pass (1983) and Ego Eye (1986), all of which have been re-released by the label Ici, d’ailleurs. Continuing her music activity, the band regularly reformed for events, until Spatsz passed away in 2019. She is working on a new KaS Product album, which she started with the keyboard player before his death.
DISTRIBUTION
Olivier Mellano : guitare, looper, arrangement, composition
Mona Soyoc : chant, composition, texte
Uriel Barthelemy : batterie
