COTONETE

It’s when everything was about to stop that it really started for Cotonete. At the beginning of the 2000s, the keyboardist Florian Pellissier and the saxophonist Frank Chatona came up with the idea of a band dedicated to jazz-funk of the 70's, influenced by the Brazilian nonchalance and percussions.

Reinforced by a bass, drums, a guitar, trombone and trumpet (all the musiciens who would later found Akale Wube, Camarao Orchestra or Florian Pellissier Quintet) Cotonete then regularly spreads its groove in bars or dark rooms. The studio is then the logical continuation of things. A gap between them and their role models, a diluted magic when the recording lights turns on, Cotonete fails to recreate the energy and cohesion of the band on stage. Condemned to only play live and unable to immortalize on records, Cotonete decides to say goodbye in 2013 with a last tour…

Then the internet. A strange message from Eastern Europe. An invitation to play in a festival in Kazakhstan. Must be a spam. Destination, the digital trash. Saved in extremis by one of their relatives who draws the attention on the sender. Rustam Ospanoff, an influential DJ from the cold. The invitation was serious! Back on track !

One month later, Cotonete gives the full measure of their ability to electrify the scene and take the audience in groovy trip that goes through Africa, South America, while roaming through the streets of crowded and electric cities of the world. Melik, a DJ programmed with them during these two decisive days, understands that it’s a serious case, and offers them to go back in studio to record a series of three maxis based on the principle of the original track, and its remixes.

Cabo is the last part of this trilogy. Hypnotized by bass-supported keyboards, Cotonete gradually creates an atmosphere of tribal, hostile and mysterious rhythms. A break of a few seconds and the tension starts again. The brass supports it, and then come the liberating measures which lead to the soli. It becomes a pure jazz environment but slowly, the arrangements begin to mutate. Electric pianos become synthesizers, the beat turns into a sequenced loop. Then it is a perfect transition for Phil Asher and his Cobra Mix. This time, the pulsations of the bass drum takes you into a rhythmic spell and it’s impossible to get rid of it for ten minutes. The original tribal atmosphere has thickened with smoke like a voodoo deep-house ceremony, the effects fall in showers or in fine rain until the liberating gong.