Sample and hold

>> Bosco bring avant-hard electro from the flea markets of Paris

by CHRIS YURKIW

 Let's just start with a little stat: to create their breakout album of hip-house electro collage, Paramour, the French duo Bosco tapped some 1,200 sound samples, and in the (legal) end paid for and cleared just one--a snippet of ol' Sabbath vocalist Ronnie James Dio.
 These days, there's a struggle a-happenin' over current concepts of intellectual property and its distribution in new digital media, and in relevant trade-union parlance you've gotta decide which side you're on; that of Metallica, who are suing the Napster software co. for enabling "free" digital downloads of their songs, or that of Limp Bizkit, who just got the same company to sponsor their upcoming summer tour.
 For François Marché and Stéphane Bodin, a couple of thirtysomething French boys who were on their way to record-head slackerdom just a few years ago, there's no question at all. "We compose mainly with machines," says Bodin, "the sampler is our main songwriting instrument."
 "It was truly just a hobby that was part of our day-to-day existence and our way of listening to music," adds Bodin, "but then we turned it into a way of making music. I mean, the two of us listen to music every day, constantly, tons of it. We used to spend most of our days together just listening to records. Then we bought a sampler, and listening to music became a way of making music. We take little pieces from this record or that, and put them together."
 Of course, this kind of thing's been going on since Kool Herc was jammin' house parties in the Bronx (and there is a nice hip hop base to Bosco's wacked-out electro ditties that distances them from the moments they touch on disco-y "French Touch" house), but for Bosco, and thousands of bedroom samplers around the world, it's not just "a new way of listening to music," as Bodin says, but a new language. Pity the Académie Française, then plop down your money for some killer French pop music.
 "In the end, we are dependent on technology," says Stéphane. "We use mostly used vinyl [for sample sources], things that are cheap because they're the scrap of consumer society. You know, the more something sold way back when, the more it's in the garbage today and easily accessible. So we use a lot of things from the '70s and the early '80s, but also as far back as the '40s and '50s."
 Not that any of Bosco's source material is really recognizable, nor the fact that they mixed and assembled Paramour in the Arizona desert with American engineer Jim Waters (Blues Explosion, Sonic Youth), who worked their sounds and samples just as he would a band, with mics and amps.
 "I think it's a bit crazy to still want to make rock music these days," says Bodin, "but I find it fascinating. And it's kind of the same thing with contemporary R&B, which I'm also really interested in these days: at this point it seems as if there's almost nothing in the music except for the dynamic of the sound, found in the production, but somehow it works regardless. I find that fascinating as well." :
 
 

Bosco play live at the MEG festival this Wednesday, May 31 with Kid Loco, Le Lutin and DJ Maues at Club Soda