An afternoon of Telepopmusik A long wait preceded the appearance of the Telepopsters. Meanwhile, Matt Cantor got busy with some rough 'n' dubby breakbeats... Strange arrangements in the dance tent as ever with the hardest sounds as like to be heard in the middle of the day as the middle of the night, but people don't seem to care! That's the beauty of a three-day, non-stop party such as this. The assembled folks were already flapping about merrily with varying degrees of coordination, and when the hotly anticipated Telepopmusik (pronounce it "Dillibop-museek" if you fancy coming across all Francais) finally made it onstage half an hour late, they cheered even louder.
Having been exposed to the "softer" side of Telepopmusik via Gilles Peterson's WorldWide radio show and the Peugeot ad featuring "Breathe", I was expecting something a bit more (to employ a hideously over-used term) chill-out. So when the band finally made it onto the stage half an hour late I was somewhat taken aback by the opening funk-rocker - more catchy chorus than cinematic soundscape. A few more hip-hop and laid-back influences show up later in the set, with New Flesh's MC from Big Dada records getting busy on the guest-appearance tip (and promoting his "animal" nature...) Things calmed down at about Track 4, with vocalist Mal taking us on a spoken-word journey to somewhere with clear blue skies...
	Chatting to main-man (or one of them) Christophe after the show, I asked about the contrast in style between record and live show. All became clear when he explained their background has been in French pop-rock bands. No strangers, then, to live performance, they knew how important keeping it interesting would be. In addition to the main three - Christophe, Fabrice & Stephan (who is, as Christophe put it, half German, half Iranian "but he's French really!" ) - they have the man-about-stage Mal, the New Flesh MC, the talents of New York based singer Angela, and a rag-tag jumble of add-ons, live drums and guitar. Says Christophe: "We wanted to have live instruments, not button pushing! That's boring."
A chance collaboration brought them together a few years ago -a track they were asked to do for a compilation was picked up by their record company who encouraged them to make more beautiful music together. Discovering they had the ability to become, in Christophe's words, "masters of the world" with a sampler, the Genetic World album, a mixed bag of lush, jazzy electronica and more upbeat bits, was born last year, to much acclaim from the likes of Gilles, Francophiles and, er, car ad music sourcers. So, catch 'em while you can, and look out for future work - they're eyeing up Tricky's chanteuse Martina...
Words & Pictures: Marilyn Kahan