BLUNDETTO

Blundetto double LP with new collaborations, digging deeper into his sound. Amazing packaging too! With his second album, Blundetto digs further his own sound, a soulful reggae with strong latin and hip hop vibes. Once again, he invited many artists to collaborate with him : the singer Hugh Coltman for the cover of soul classic “Hercules”, ethio jazz band Akale Wube for strong cinematic instrumentals, legendary skater Tommy Guerrero for folky guitars, the golden voice of Jamaican Courntey Love, the rapper Aqueel on 2 songs, Jahdan Blakkamoore on the “Walk away now”. Apart from a few radio presenters, no one has ever seen him. At the moment Blundetto exists only on record. For good reason: when his first album ‘Bad Bad Things’ came out in June 2012, Blundetto was not entirely comfortable with the idea of being an artist. The surprising thing was that in real life Max Guiget had been a programmer at Radio Nova since 1998. A disciple of Jean-François Bizot, the radio’s founder, he learnt the ropes by watching Gilles Peterson, Laurent Garbier, DJ Gilb-R and Lord Zelko, but he never dreamed that he might one day be a star on the decks or in a studio. In his own words, ‘It was some friends who urged me to do the first album. They’d heard the forty or so demos I’d made at home and encouraged me to finalise fifteen or so of them. But the idea of playing live sent me into a cold sweat. I didn’t feel at all like going out on stage on my own.’ No touring, then and he turned down some great opportunities to perform his tracks on TV for the same reason. Almost in spite of himself, his album received a really good critical welcome. A single with General Elektriks got him onto the France Inter playlist, another with Hindi Zahra earned him regular airtime on Gilles Peterson’s decks, and there was even an article about him in Closer magazine in midsummer. He still chuckles at the whole thing. In fact, the buzz caught Blundetto off-guard. Gradually he got used to the whole interview game, agreed to remix other artists and finally decided to serve us up some more on his second album ‘Warm My Soul’. Although his unique style of instrumental canvas provides some obvious continuity, none of the guest vocalists from the first album features on the second. ‘I didn’t break off with anyone. It’s just I didn’t want to get in a rut. I don’t have any particular method. I only invite people I admire, and so my policy is a bit wait-and-see with some people to see where they go with my track, like the rastaman Courtney John, for example. We met out in Jamaica and later I sent him some demos without giving him any particular instructions. He didn’t let me down. But I love it when a few of us work on a track together. For example, Aqeel was round at my house for a day and we came up with “It’s All About”.’ Other musicians join the kitchen crew to cook us up a treat: the New Yorker Jahdan Blakkamoore at the microphone, Shawn Lee helping out on drums, Tommy Guerrero on guitar, and Guillaume Metenier giving it some swing on keyboards. All these folks are used to a melting pot of latin-soul, reggae-dancehall and jazz-funk with an additional, very cinematic feel to it.