Exotica

Born in 1970, Olivier Gauthier has been exploring electronic music for over ten years. At first heavily influenced by industrial music, he released his first singles with a pounding techno sound under the name of Dementia Praecox (2), then Digital Audio Sex on the new Kama Records label based in Poitiers (France). From the beginning he focused on live performance and built a strong reputation on the French underground rave circuit. At the end of 1996, he set up the label Fiat Lux with Emmanuel Chollet who shares his musical tastes (Throbbing Gristle, Aphex Twin, Coil, Chris & Cosey, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, Smiths, Joy Division, etc.) At the same time, he moved to London and settled down in Brixton, a Jamaican area where he immersed himself in the Black roots of Techno, Reggae, Disco and Funk. His subsequent productions on Fiat Lux had more of a House flavour. An influential artist within the label, his tracks under the monikers of Star Deluxe and Sexy Kool (from 1998) rocked the compilation "Fiat Lux Racing Team 99", winning international acclaim following which Olivier toured clubs and festivals in Europe and the USA with an astounding live set. In 1998, alongside his house productions, Olivier remixed several tracks from the LP "Astralmoonbeamprojections" by British post-rock band Amp (Kranky – USA) with whom he toured Northern Europe. This was the start of a regular collaboration with Amp, in 1998 on the album "Stenorette" and in 2001 on the album "L’Amour Invisible" released on Space Age Recordings, the British label of Sonic Boom (2) of the mythical Spacemen 3. His work with Amp heralded his future projects under the name of Exotica in 2000/2001. Moving away from the Funky House scene which he felt was fast approaching a dead end, Olivier came back to a more Techno/Electro sound. In March 2001, the single "When I Was a Kid", his first incarnation as Exotica, revealed his new musical orientation. With his move to sunny Barcelona at the end of 2001, his music paradoxically explored darker and darker moods. With his following EP "Weekend" released in January 2002, he gave a chance to Step Color AKA Aurélien Gauthier, his promising younger brother who offered two inspired remixes. The 12" "Sentence" was an uncompromising Electro/Techno track. With its dancefloor killer remix by Southsoniks from Swiss label Scandium Records, the single found its way into the record bags of a number of DJ's such as Laurent Garnier, Funk D’Void, and Hacker. His last project before the release of his first LP was a remix of a track by Étant Donnés, a band from Grenoble, France who collaborated with the likes of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (from Throbbing Gristle), Alan Vega (Suicide), Lydia Lunch, Mark Cunningham (from Mars (4)). Exotica explores his very own universe and doesn’t limitate himself to a particular trend of electronic music. Having integrated the whole electronic culture, he gives us sincere and personal compositions which reveal the wide range and the variety of the musical worlds he's explored in the course of his labyrinthine journey.