Rinôçerôse

Jean-Philippe: guitar, mellodica and percussion
Patou: bass and keyboards

Rinoçérose is a duo hailing from Montpellier whose original aim was to create a pop approach to dub and house music: to play dance music using the classic instruments of a pop band, from a purely experimental perspective. Though they use samplers, they play most instruments themselves.

In spite of being a highly personal and basically studio-oriented project, on their live acts (like that on Festival Les Transmusicales at Rennes, which has brought them such good results in their home country) they play with a band formed by two other guitarists and a percussionist, in a shockingly visual show featuring dancers and videoprojections.

At the Benicàssim Festival they contacted Stereophonic Elefant Dance Recordings, and after listening to the overwhelming quality and personality of the songs included on their demo, they immediately began to work on what would be their debut full-length CD, featuring original songs and remixes by such renown remixers as Steve “Dub” Jones (engineer with THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS, a band which, though hailing from a different scene, comes to similar sounds than RINOÇÉROSE´s), Bruno Catala (French DJ, with three maxis released on Andy Weatherall’s label) and Johnny Palumbo (jungle and trip-hop producer from Montpellier); from it we have taken a maxi-single featuring the song “Inacceptable”, plus new remixes of tracks which were already featured on the CD (like “Bloodsport”, KILLING JOKE’s cover version).

Among their acknowledged influences we find Curtis Mayfield, MASSIVE ATTACK, Mad Professor, King Tubby, Lee “Scratch” Perry, the underground house music, BECK, THE VELVET UNDERGROUND, Alan Vega, Martin Rev (SUICIDE) and PINK FLOYD (on their debuts)...

In 1997 they’ve played with big success at the Benicàssim International Festival in Spain as well as other festivals in France and Sweden, and they included songs in compilations as “Underground Dance Organization” (UDO-Boa Spain), and “Mondo Sonoro” (sold along with the magazine of the same name). After selling out all the copies of their self-titled debut, they released the CD “Retrospective”, which featured all the songs recorded by the band to that date, opening a new stage which is promising a huge success.

A following Maxi/CD-single, “Le Mobilier”, including four tracks, was their last release for Stereophonic Elefant Dance Recordings. Now they are in V2 label, ready to conquer the whole world with their impressive sound.

Discography in Stereophonic:
ED-006 “Rinoçérose” CD 1995
ED-009 “Inacceptable” Maxi-Single 1995
ED-022 “Retrospective” CD 1996
ED-025 “Le Mobilier” Maxi-Single/CD-Single , 1998