Website -> www.chromeo.net

Chromeo is Dave 1 and P-Thugg, also known as David Macklovitch and Patrick Gemayel. Two best friends that have been doing music together since they were kids and now live in the same crib like The Monkees.

Back in the early-to-mid 90's Dave and Pee, both trained musicians, had a funk band together and were playing in clubs even though they were still underage. Then the band disbanded and they went on to producehip hop.

Dave 1 has made beats for all of Montreal's main hip hop bands, including Shades of Culture, Dubmatique, Sans Pression, Yvon Kreve, Butta Babees and Bran Van 3000 (they're not hip hop but it's all gravy). Pee has co-produced many of those records and also works with Toronto's Citizen Kane.

Dave 1, along with his little bro, the world renown A-Trak, owns Audio Research records: one of Canada's prime independent rap labels, distributed worldwide through New York's prestigious Fat Beats. Pee is the label's production manager. Audio Research's main artist, Obscure Disorder is entirely produced by Dave 1 and A-Trak is the group's DJ. Since 1997 Obscure have sold over 25 000 singles, on vinyl only.

But what's up with Chromeo in all of this? In the summer of 2000, Tiga, a fan of OD, stepped to Dave and asked him if he was interested to do an electronic music project on Turbo. He kept hustling him until, in early 2001, Dave and Pee put together a little half-assed demo and got signed the next day.

Chromeo is just Dave and Pee doing other stuff than hip hop. They have virtually no knowledge of contemporary elecrtonic or dance-orientated music. Chromeo's influences include but are not limited to: Zapp, Bronski Beat, Guns N' Roses and Timex Social Club. (Kraftwerk and Led Zeppelin also).


Dave is currently doing a Masters' degree in French Literature at McGill and aims to be a university teacher. Pee works as an accountant and wants to have a family with lots of children.

The French band Phoenix draws elements from an eclectic '80s upbringing to arrive at their rock-synth sound. Thomas Mars (vocals), Deck D'Arcy (bass), and Christian Mazzalai (guitars) were a garage band based out of Mars' house in the suburbs of Paris. Mazzalai's older brother Branco joined the band on guitar when his band Darlin' disbanded in 1995. The group got their touring start on the French bar circuit doing Hank Williams and Prince covers to drunk audiences. Two years later the band took on the name Phoenix and pressed 500 copies of a single on their own label, Ghettoblaster. The A-side was a punk rock song and the other a chugging Krautrocker, hinting at their eclectic tastes. Shortly after, they were signed to the Paris-based Source records. Phoenix became well aquainted with labelmates Air when they acted as their backing band on several U.K. TV appearances. The result of the electronic exposure was a single called "Heatwave," which was very similar to an old '70s disco tune. United, the group's debut album, appeared in 2000 on Astralwerks and was recorded over two months. The album featured guest appearances from friends and family, including Thomas Bangalter (Daft Punk), Phillipe Zdar (Cassius), and D'Arcy's mother's choral society on the track "Funky Squaredance." Alphabetical followed in 2004.

Norwegian duo Röyksopp compensated for the cold climes of their native Tromsø by making some of the warmest, most inviting downbeat electronica of the new millennium, exemplified by early singles like "Eple" and "Poor Leno." The pair, Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge, both grew up in Tromsø and began recording in the early '90s. Local-made-good Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) provided tutelage and almost convinced the duo to record for R&S sublabel Apollo. After a few years apart, Brundtland and Berge met up again in Bergen and re-formed Röyksopp in 1998. The group released a few singles on Tellé, then signed up to the big beat label Wall of Sound. The Röyksopp debut was 2001's "Eple" single; both "Eple" and another track ("Poor Leno") earned slots on over a dozen chill-out compilations that year or the next. Their first full-length, Melody A.M., appeared in late 2001. After spending a few years performing live and remixing artists including Beck and Annie, Royksopp returned with new material in 2005: the single "Only This Moment" heralded the summer release of the duo's second album The Understanding, which featured more traditionally structured songs than their earlier work.

LCD Soundsystem debuted with Losing My Edge, a single that became one of the most talked-about indie releases of 2002. A self-effacing spoof of the outrageous pissing contests that often occur whenever music geeks cross paths ("I was there at the first Can show in Cologne," etc.) laid over a puttering electronic beat with the occasional bursts of discoid clatter, the track was also one of the first released on the DFA label. Several magazines and newspapers would eventually declare James Murphy, the man behind both LCD Soundsystem and DFA, to be one of the coolest people on the planet. Years of obscurity and the occasional poor decision preceded this. Just before Murphy began to cut his teeth throughout the '90s, first as a member of Pony (an average post-hardcore band with heavy debts to their inspirations) and then with Speedking (a much stronger, more unique band), he passed up the opportunity to write for the popular sitcom Seinfeld. All the time spent toiling in indie rock took a toll on Murphy, but he built his own studio and became increasingly adept at engineering and producing other bands.While working on David Holmes' Bow Down to the Exit Sign, he struck up a relationship with programmer/producer Tim Goldsworthy that developed into a partnership. By the end of 2002, there were several releases on Murphy and Goldsworthy's DFA label, most of which involved the duo in some capacity. LCD's "Losing My Edge," backed with an excellent neo-post-punk dance track called "Beat Connection," was one of them. Murphy scattered three other LCD singles through the end of 2004 and released a self-titled full-length in January of 2005. At the time of its release, the DFA label was more popular than ever; Murphy and Goldsworthy had remixes for Metro Area, N.E.R.D., Le Tigre, and Junior Senior behind them, as well as failed sessions with Britney Spears that might've benefited from an interpreter. Janet Jackson was another unlikely admirer seeking the duo's assistance, but Murphy didn't bother to follow up on her request.

The new wave/electro-pop troupe Fischerspooner was formed in New York City in 1998 and has come to incorporate multimedia, strange handmade costumes, dancing, and performance art. Originally a duo formed by classically trained musician Warren Fischer and video-artist and experimental theater performer Casey Spooner for an impromptu rendition of their makeshift track "Indian Cab Fever" at the Astor Place Starbucks, the group grew to over 20 performers, mostly dancers and guest vocalists. These singers have included Cindy Greene, Lizzy Yoder (also of Sweet Thunder), and Korean pop recording artist Mona Trona. The group uses the stage antics of David Bowie and traditional mainstream pop vocalists, along with the campy electronics of Giorgio Moroder or Depeche Mode and vocoders of Trans Am. By the time of their 2000 eponymous debut, Fischerspooner was a certifiable sensation in downtown New York City art galleries and clubs. The single "Emerge" topped European charts, invited a six-song remix EP, and won Fischer and Spooner invitations to international fashion, art, and society happenings. The 2002 album #1 was a re-envisioning of their debut with yet another mix of "Emerge," this time more sedate and electro, following the trend of the times. The duo returned in 2005 with their second album, Odyssey. Hitmaker Linda Perry, intellectual Susan Sontag, and Madonna producer Mirwais all made appearances.

More apt to cite stately rock paragons Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson as their inspirations than Derrick May or Aphex Twin, the French duo Air gained inclusion into the late-'90s electronica surge due chiefly to the labels their recordings appeared on, not the actual music they produced. Their sound, a variant of the classic disco sound coaxed into a relaxing Prozac vision of the late '70s, looked back to a variety of phenomena from the period — synthesizer maestros Tomita, Jean-Michel Jarre, and Vangelis, new wave music of the nonspiky variety, and obscure Italian film soundtracks. Despite gaining quick entrance into the dance community (through releases for Source and Mo' Wax), Air's 1998 debut album, Moon Safari, charted a light — well, airy — course along soundscapes composed with melody lines by Moog and Rhodes, not Roland and Yamaha. The presence of several female vocalists, an equipment list whose number of pieces stretched into the dozens, and a baroque tuba solo on one track — all of this conspired to make Air more of a happening in the living room than the dancefloor.

Though Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel both grew up in Versailles, the two didn't meet until they began studying at the same college. Dunckel, who had studied at the Conservatoire in Paris, played in an alternative band named Orange. One of Dunckel's bandmates, Alex Gopher, introduced Godin into the lineup. While Gopher himself departed (later to record for the Solid label), Dunckel and Godin continued on, becoming Air by 1995. During 1996-1997, the duo released singles on Britain's Mo' Wax ("Modular") and the domestic Source label ("Casanova 70," "Le Soleil Est Prés de Moi"). Though Air often evinced the same '60s Continental charm as Dimitri From Paris — due no doubt to the influence of Serge Gainsbourg — the duo had little in common musically with other acts (Daft Punk) in the wave of French electronica lapping at the shores of Britain and America during 1997. That same year, Air remixed Depeche Mode and Neneh Cherry and joined French musique concrète popster Jean-Jacques Perrey for a track on the Source compilation Sourcelab, Vol. 3. Signed to Virgin, Air released their debut album, Moon Safari, in early 1998. The singles "Sexy Boy" and "Kelly Watch the Stars" became moderate hits in Britain and earned airplay on MTV. Later that year, Godin and Dunckel mounted an ambitious tour throughout Europe and America, though they had originally decided to forego live appearances. Their early singles were collected in 1999 under the title Premiers Symptomes; the duo's soundtrack to the Sofia Coppola film The Virgin Suicides followed in early 2000. Air's second studio effort, 10,000 Hz Legend, appeared in spring 2001 with a subsequent tour of the U.S., but critics and fans alike didn't appreciate the darker, more experimental direction. They bridged the gap between the pop of Moon Safari and the experimentalism of 10,000 Hz Legend with their 2004 release Talkie Walkie.