Description
Sebastian is a difficult character to describe. Try summing him up, and he will instantaneously slip through your fingers.
We nonetheless managed to learn these few facts about him:
He was born Sebastian Akchoté, in Boulogne, France.
His family comes from the former Yugoslavia.
He started producing music with machines at the age of 15, with two members of the Rap band Cercle Vicieux. He met Jean-Louis Costes at around the same time. Costes is a radical figure in the Parisian underground scene. A performer, musician, film director and writer, he respects no limits, and it is always best to take an umbrella to one of his happenings. Sebastian made his debut on Coste’s album “Nik Ta Race”, which was an explosive encounter between indie rock and rap.
That same year, Daft Punk released “Homework” and rocked the world with their own special brand of House Music. Sebastian’s destiny is linked to these two extremes: the underground and the overground, mixing before Costes’ obscure shows one day and opening for Daft Punk in stadiums across the planet the next day.
In 2004, Sebastian gave his demos to Pedro Winter, who signed him on Ed Banger Records straight away. A real stakhanovite – he is said to produce one track a day - Sebastian has released two EPs to date, “Smoking Kills” in 2004 and “Ross, Ross, Ross” in 2006, which make him one of the most intriguing personalities on the French electronic scene. His incredibly effective style is very hard to describe. Only his friend Kavinsky has managed to pin it down: “cigarette coughing rhythms, little washing-machine noises and meters that go into overload all of a sudden”. Well said.
After acting as an extra in a few of John B. Root‘s porn films, he was seen in “Steak” by Quentin Dupieux (Mr Oizo), with whom he composed the soundtrack alongside Sebastien Tellier. He has also been doing an enormous quantity of remixes (Daft Punk, Klaxons, Kelis, The Rapture, etc). Today he gives us a new EP, with the brief definitive title “Motor”.
Here it is:
- “Motor”: basic, excessive, devastating, the definition of what the Ed Banger crew likes to call a “turbine”. As alarming as an over-heating reactor: a bomb has been deposited on the dance floor.
- “Momy”: Vangelis and Moroder captured in the eye of an electronic cyclone.
- “Army”: terminal atomization. No one will come out alive.
The future is uncertain, but we can count on two things:
Sebastian will release a debut album that is as ambitious and unsettling as a Zappa album.
Sebastian won’t be where he is expected.