General ElektriksGood City For DreamersQP 090Tracklisting:01. Take Back The InstantHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters02. Raid The RadioHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters03. You Don’t ListenHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters04. HelicopterHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written by Adèle Salters, Jules Salters and Hervé SaltersArranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters05. Cottons Of InertiaHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters06. Little LadyHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters07. Engine Kickin' InHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters08. David Lynch MomentsHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters09. Gathering All The Lost LovesHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters10. Mirabelle PocketsHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters11. La Nuit Des EphémèresHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters12. Bloodshot EyesHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters13. Rebel SunHervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP)Written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé SaltersAll songs written, arranged, performed and produced by Hervé Salters (The Audio Kitchen/ASCAP), except ‘Helicopter’ written by Adèle Salters, Jules Salters and Hervé Salters.Mixed by Mike Cresswell at Little Mod, Los Angeles.Mastered by Eddy Shreyer at Oasis Mastering, Los Angeles.Design and Illustration by Mathematics www.xy-1.comRecorded on and off between fall 2006 and fall 2008 by Hervé Salters at The Audio Kitchen, Berkeley, except strings/horns recorded by Mike Cresswell at The Studio That Time Forgot, San Francisco, on August 26th 2007. ‘Helicopter’ vocals recorded in a Berkeley schoolyard on June 4th 2007.All sounds made with keyboards and samplers, except for the horns and strings. The parts that sound like distorted guitars were played on a Hohner Clavinet C.Hervé Salters: keyboards, vocals, drum programming, sampling, string/horn arrangements.Cyril Guiraud: saxophones, flute.Erik Jekabson: trumpet.Adam Theis: trombones.Devin Hoff: upright bass.Alan Lin: violin.Beth Vandervennett: cello.Crowd on ‘Raid The Radio:’ Cris Armijo, Bart Davenport, Kween, Lateef The Truthspeaker, Sarah Salters, Hervé Salters, Tony Sevener, Chief Xcel.Children on ‘Helicopter:’ Adèle Salters, Jules Salters, Matys McMillin, Morgan McMillin, and schoolyard friends.BIO: General Elektriks is the brainchild of Hervé “RV” Salters. A French national and a vintage keyboard player, RV quickly became the goto Parisian for “vintage sound,” scoring session work with Femi Kuti, -M-, and DJ Mehdi, among others, before leaving France in 1999 to relocate to the US.Using his favorite keys, a computer and a mic, General Elektriks began as a musical journal that followed RV through his move from San Francisco to Seattle, then back to Berkeley, where he currently resides. It was in the Bay Area that he hooked up with the Quannum crew and started doing session work for them, and it was through Quannum that he also released the first GE record, 2005’s Cliquety Kliqk. Described by URB as “Ennio Morricone for the 21st century,” the album, which also featured appearances from Lateef The Truthspeaker and Chief Xcel, was a mix of vintage funk, hip-hop beats, noir riffs, cinematic arrangements, pop melodies and digital twinkle. And people caught on: besides a positive press response, “‘Tu M’intrigues” was used in commercials for Mercedes-Benz’s E Class and Ralph Lauren’s Notorious perfume, while “Time to Undress” was played in Woody Allen’s 2007 film, Cassandra’s Dream.After touring behind the album, Salters joined Blackalicious in the studio to work on their third full-length, 2005’s The Craft, and also joined them on their accompanying tours. Concurrently, he formed the trio Honeycut with singer Bart Davenport and drummer/programmer Tony Sevener, and Quannum released their critically-acclaimed debut, The Day I Turned To Glass, in 2006. As he was touring with Honeycut and laying keys down for more artists (Lifesavas, Lyrics Born, Curumin, Jel, the Mighty Underdogs, to name a few), Salters started working on a second GE effort. Completed in the fall of 2008, Good City for Dreamers is a multi-dimensional, multi cultural recording that puts the French expatriate in the growing ranks of artists who are citizens of the world, of artists who create sonic landscapes that feed as much on their origins as they do on their travels. It’s RV’s own take on psychedelia, one where future soul, old-school pop, sampling, indie rock, hip-hop and free jazz sparkle as they collide.Live, General Elektriks – comprised of a five-piece band, led by Salters – consistently sells out shows across Europe. With plans to tour the US in the fall of 2009, North American fans will finally have he chance to see what La Blogotheque describes as “…the power to bring dead people back to life, to make walls tremble, and to make hips sway…Salters loses 3 liters of sweat per show and dances and jumps around without interruption… General Elektriks was here and turned the club upside down, and their music is an excitement without precedent,” and TRAX Magazine says “…the GE 5 piece makes the temperature rise and turns the spot into a Turkish bath... ...On top of being a talented musician, Salters also turns out to be an exceptional dancer, with legwork worthy of a boxer. A true keyboard hero, he is the Angus Young of the Clavinet.”Cuting-edge French label Discograph (Coralie Clément, Dimitri From Paris) put out Good City for Dreamers in Europe and Japan in February 2009, and the album will be released by Quannum Projects in North America on November 10, 2009.PRESS:When Hervé “RV” Salters, the man behind General Elektriks, released Cliquety Kliqk in 2005, the record was immediately lauded for its quirky ingenuity and the way it toyed between hip-hop and pop, long before artists like Gnarls Barkley and Santogold hit the airwaves. In thinking about his next album, Hervé decided he wanted to make a record that paid homage to the traditions of his idols before him, but he wasn’t interested in just another throwback. He wanted to continue to make progressive art-soul that said what he wanted it to say and defended the idea of not feeling tied down by rules, even at the risk of falling flat on your face. Using this Young Americans-esque appoach, with Good City for Dreamers (out November 10), Salters has crafted a record that perfectly blends the hard-edged funk of the Meters with the contemplativeness of Caetano Veloso, a record that shows off enough of RV’s own style – those vintage keys, the perfectly situated pauses, the seamless intra-song transitions, the messily melodious distortion – that it’s able to explore a variety of genres without it ever sounding disjointed.The songs are carefully formed and executed, pulling not only from Stevie Wonder and the Beatles and Sly Stone but also West Coast sunshine pop, film composers, 80s synth-pop, indie rock, and of course, hip-hop and soul. Still, Good City For Dreamers sounds and feels like it was created by a full band, even if it was just RV on his Clavinet, his drum machines, his acoustic piano; everything, in fact, but the strings and horns.“Mirabelle Pockets,” written about his son Jules’ eagerness to pick the plums in their backyard, plays with Continental jazz and pop, and “Raid the Radio,” familiar even in its uniqueness, is classic General Elektriks: warm, quirky, and totally accessible. It’s no wonder why the French music magazine World Sound called him “one of the most brilliant French musicians and producers” and Vibrations said, upon hearing Good City For Dreamers, “Jamie Lidell better watch out.”There’s a taste of anti-establishment on the record, manifested both unambiguously (“Raid the Radio,” for example, or “Take Back the Instant”) and more subtly (“Rebel Sun,” which is about the water war in Bolivia in 2000). Salters’s voice itself also plays a big role in this: instead of the dexterous vocals that generally accompany the kind of music he plays, he approached it from an indie-rock perspective, in which, as he explains it, “a less-schooled vocal can bring out different – and maybe more intimate – emotions.”But while RV’s voice is more present here than it did on 2005’s Cliquety Kliqk, it is truly his keyboard work that stands out. It squelches along with the bass on “Take Back the Instant,” a song Salters originally thought would be a ballad until he played it on the Clavinet, stays sultry and jazzy on acoustic piano on “Rebel Sun,” pays tribute to the Eurythmics on “David Lynch Moments,” and even wails like a guitar on “You Don’t Listen.” He’s been playing the keys since he was a kid, and his passion for them and understanding of them are clear. They are what propel the album, what give it life, and ultimately, what make Good City for Dreamers such a compelling, entertaining release.