Cosmo Vitelli released LPs & singles for Solid , Paris, Virgin, remixed Daft Punk, Cassius, and Scratch Massive among many others, and founded his own label I’m A Cliché (releases by Simian Mobile Disco, Yuksek, Tacteel…) in 2004. He gladly presents us 2 new songs and talks about his Bot’Ox project with Julien Briffaz of Tekel. Enjoy!

What’s up in Cosmo’s world?

Bass kicks, basslines, guitar riffs.
Some girls too.

By the way where does the name comes from?

A movie. The main character in John Cassavetes’ Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It’s all about pimps, gogo’s and strip bars …I chose the name more than 10 years ago actually.

There is an album from Bot’Ox coming out soon, can you telll me more about it?

We’ve been working on it for almost 3 years with my mate Julien (he’s also part of the duo Tekel). We try to make it the soundtrack of the Car Culture.
I play the guitar & bass, Julien plays the drums, we both play synths & produce the whole thing. It’s mainly instrumental, based on long improvisations and lots of editing. It’s really a studio project, but we plan to make it live very soon.

Who is Uncle O, it seems he’s been THE man in Paris since the dark ages of clubbing?

He’s a graphic designer, Dj, and has the record collection I’d kill to get. He’s kind of low profile so you won’t turn him into a sort of Don of the Parisian club culture. But he’s been very active since the mid 80’s, as a graphic designer or as a Dj, for example as a resident at les Bains-Douches, a mythical Parisian club. First time I met him was at his Toxic party in Paris, and I couldn’t believe what I heard, slow dark electro mixed with old school hip hop or abstract disco…We’ve been talking about releasing some of his material on my label for a long time, and here it is finally.

How’s life in Paris? Anything you can recommend, not necessarily music-wise?

Paris isn’t a musical city. Most of the clubs and record shops closed. I have a monthly in a place callled “La Flèche d’Or”, and that’s the first time in ages that I really have fun making parties here. But mainly, Paris is getting more and more a city for old people, quite expansive and less and less active culturally. A kind of Museum-town…

How is it today to run a label like I’m a Cliché? What about physical releases?

Hard. We’re exactly between the physical and digital eras, and nobody seems to know how to deal with this transition moment. It’s been a long time since we had such great music around like today, but as nobody seems to buy records anymore, it’s harder and harder to release it. At I’m a Cliché, we see records as a promotional tools, wich have to be the best possible, but we know we won’t earn money on them, possibly lose some even. But it makes many things possible, like parties, booking, etc…

To end, what would be Cosmo’s dream line-up for a party?

Ron Hardy, Bambaata, Don Letts, playing at the same party could have been nice.

Visit Cosmo Vitelli’s Myspace