Biography
Thomas Roussel and Yannick Grandjean are SomethingALaMode, SALM for the intimate and those in a hurry.
An exceptional duet - and I mean it, because it is a rare thing to meet classical musicians nurtured in club culture, musicians just as thrilled by post-romantics such as Chostakovitch, Stravinsky and Fauré among others as by Daft Punk’s «Homework» or Mirways’ “Disco science” musicians who can launch a 2008 technoparade in front of 15,000 persons and the day after play for a happy few at the ICA in London. Musicians eager to have their album mixed by Arnaud Rebotini the dark prince of the dark touch to be released with Yellow, the historic label of electronic music with a french touch flavour.
SALM is a story of daring, of desire and above all of counter-current. The story of two kids whose teenage years were as rhythmically played as a musicalscore - boyant weekdays spent at the music school (the whole hog : music reading, instrument, orchestra). The week end dance at An-Fer - a mythical club in the French history of electronics, the unavoidable venue for Laurent Garnier, Daft. Punk, Jeff Mills, and other legends of technomusic in the desert of Dijon’s clubbing in the 90s.
It’s in the Eden of An-Fer that a 15-year-old Yannick went through his electronic epiphany. It is there that Thomas (then 18) met Jeff Mills for the first time. He shook his hand, an anonymous fan in the DJ’s booth. He shook his hand again 12 years later, as a collaborator embarked in the grandiose Blue Potential project - Jeff Mills’s classics interpretered by a symphoniy orchestra at the Pont du Gard in the summer of 2006.Mills couldn’t believe what he heard, Thomas could : he was the arranger of this exceptional feat.
SALM was born in the wake of this concert, in October 2006, after the two friends had spent years nurturing the project in their minds. One night, Thomas, the violinist, recognized for his collaborations in contemporary art, and Yannick, the cellist, first prize laureate of the National School of Music, met again... around an old P.C. - caught up again in the sacred fire of «dance» music and the desire to leave the beaten paths of music, whether electronic or pop, a desire to melt all their passions into one, to create emotion through a fragile string or the pure sound of a synthethizer without wondering where they belong - or if the dictates of art permit it.
The outcome? A first «string-electro» album dexterously mixing the clanging violins of «RondoParisiano», as baroque as they come (featuring Karl Lagerfeld), the lofty soul of “Little Bit of Feel Good” and the heady bubbles of 5 AM (with young West Coast rap singer K.F). 12 masterclass titles uniting a very 70s «Easy Loving» (Francis Lay style, enough to make Dimitri From Paris jealous) with the pent-up wrath of “Dies Irae”, a warliike march of unimaginable beauty, a hybrid both deeply melodious and radically electronic - a daring fusion of universes which have long been on a quest for each other and which thanks to SALM finally prove to be a match made in heaven.
Previous performances:
JULY 2007
Sat 21st: Fête de la musique Dijon/France
SEPTEMBER 2007
Fri 28th: Soirée annuelle du CEA Dijon/France
OCTOBER 2007
Mon 15th: Le Comantes Soirée Inkrust Paris/France
NOVEMBER 2007
Thu 29th: Les apéros du jeudi Paris/France
JANUARY 2008
Tue 15th: Soirée des vœux de la municipalité Laval/France
FEBRUARY 2008
Thu 21st: Palais de Tokyo, les jeudis de Cellar Door Paris/France
MAY 2008
Sat 17th: Cité des sciences, Nuit des musées Paris/France
JUNE 2008
Sat 7th: Institut Art Contemporain Londres/UK
Sat 14th: Opéra Garnier Paris/France
Sat 21st: Fête de la musique Dijon/France
Sun 29th: Jerkoffestival Paris/France
SEPTEMBER 2008
Sat 20th: Technoparade Paris/France
Thu 25th: Galerie Deborah Zafman Paris/France
OCTOBER 2008
Tue 28th: Elysées Biarritz Paris/France
NOVEMBER 2008
Tue 18th: Boutique Bulgari Paris/France
Fri 21st: Musée du CNAM Paris/France
DECEMBER 2008
Thu 18th: Nouveau casino, tremplin du Printemps de Bourges Paris/France
Sat 20th: Chez Babette et René, Paris
MARCH 2009
Thu 26th: Galerie LOFT19 Suzanne Tarasieve Paris/France
MAY 2009
Thu 14th: Chanel cruise show in Venice @ Lido/Italy
Sat 30th: Festival Patchwork Vauréal / France
JUNE 2009
Fri 5th: Festival des bains numériques Enghien-les-Bains/France 09/01/2009 Les SALM en concert au Nouveau Casino (Dec. 2008)
19/12/2008 Something A La Mode is on MySpace
Join us www.myspace.com/somethingalamode
