COSMO VITELLI

Exploring the fringes betwixt indie/prog-rock-infused melodic soundscapes and daringly off-kilter electronics, French disc jockey and producer Cosmo Vitelli's name has become synonymous with deep, no-holds-barred forays into uncharted territories and full body-&-soul sonic immersion. Schooled by the sound of guitars, it’s when confronted to a 4-track tape recorder that young Cosmo experienced an epiphany, which resulted in him dabbling in production as French Touch was soaring towards worldwide popular acclaim. Released in 1998, his eponymous debut for Etienne de Crécy’s Disques Solid launched his career, soon followed by an array of extended players and remixes that established him as one of the spearheads of the French electronic scene on an international scale.

Taking a sharp turn back to the leftfield after a ruthless stint in the arcane world of the majors, Cosmo Vitelli created his record label I’m a Cliché in 2004. Always a step ahead of his time and contemporaries, the Frenchman’s made it his signature to scout artists on the rise - Simian Mobile Disco, Azari & III, Yuksek, Moscoman, Red Axes to name but a few - offering them bespoke support and assistance to climb the ladder towards wider recognition. In parallel to his label-running venture, Cosmo went back to the basics with Bot’Ox, his joint project with Tekel’s Julien Briffaz. Merging alternative pop harmonics with a rock sensibility of varying scale and synth-heavy precision mechanics, the duo’s graced the grooves of labels as diverse and highly regarded as DFA and DC Recordings, eventually landing a gig at the legendary Olympia in Paris.

Now working from his Berlin studio, where he currently lives, he gets to experience the pulsating zeitgeist of European electronic music first-hand. Cosmo has been working his magic and using his name for a few years already, releasing a flurry of choice records and remixes, be it on I’m a Cliché, Edit Service, Ivan Smagghe’s Les Disques de la Mort or Malka Tuti, the latter releasing a diptych EP, ‘Holiday In Panikstrasse’. As a result, his sound’s kept digging the grooves of quality prog / indie-laced electronics rather than the formulaic DJ-friendly offerings.
It was followed by his triple-LP VA compilation ‘Bongo Beats & Bankruptcy: The Sound of I’m A Cliché’, released at the apex of European lockdowns.

In the Fall of 2021, he released the “As She Rolled Another” EP, followed by his third solo album Medhead in March 2022. Five of the record’s eight tracks featured Truus de Groot, lead singer of Dutch new/no-wave outfit Plus Instruments. Medhead is a statement to the power of electronic language for the summoning of deep-laid, recursive narratives. Emancipated from normative restraints and nonsensical branding, the album spans everything from slo-drip kraut to wasted disco, via murky motel-pop, neo-kosmische, hip-hop, industrial and reconfigured indie-rock motifs. It was followed by a remix LP in 2023, with Andrei Rusu, Krikor, Krokakai, DJ F16 Falcon, Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm, Froid Dub, and even Cosmo Vitelli himself, revisiting and reworking cuts from Medhead in a dub-leaning, freeform approach.

In 2023, Cosmo Vitelli and Truus de Groot finalised a new album together. After de Groot’s contribution to Medhead, they wanted to prolong their partnership to create a truly collaborative record. It will be released soon on I’m a Cliché.