Fortune
November 9th 2009 marks the release of ‘Highway’, the debut single by hot new Parisian four-piece Fortune. The band are set to make a serious mark on the remainder of ‘09 before scaling great heights in 2010.
‘Highway’ is a bouncy, loose limbed piece of uplifting-boogie-meets-disco-meets-blue-eyed-soul-meets-perfect-electro-indie-pop! The track climaxes with glistening, dappled ornamentation reminiscent of seminal cuts ‘Stars’ by Mr Fingers and Carl Craig’s ‘Sparkle’.
Fortune started life in April 2007 as Lionel Perres’ solo project. Lionel asked Pierre Lucas and Hervé Loos to accompany him on stage to make a bigger noise, and, step by step, the solo set-up turned into a band project .
Pierrick Devin was their engineer for the first EP sessions and joined the band soon after, thus forming the definitive line up. Mr Devin also plays guitar for French house dons Cassius, and as a result, Fortune got to record their first E.P. in Philippe (Cassius) Zdar’s Motorbass Studio, home to the influential house producers of the same name. Soon after, they finished their debut album which was mixed by Alf, who has also mixed for Air, Phoenix and Sebastian Tellier.
Fortune’s Lionel Perres used to be in the band Abstract Keal Agram with producer of the moment Tepr, whose remixes for La Roux, Santigold, Chew Lips and Calvin Harris have torn up dancefloors worldwide.
To drop a few more names, it’s worth mentioning that Pierrick has played and recorded with Phoenix, Etienne De Crécy and Alex Gopher. Plus, Fortune have remixed Phoenix’s ‘1901’.
James Pants, who is signed to the influential beats-based label Stones Throw, delivers a laid back, bass-heavy downtempo re-rub with added heavy breakbeats. Pants’ remix maintains the sunny nature of the original, whilst sloping along in a smoked-out haze.
For the househeads, New York’s Eli Escobar delivers a deep, dubbed out and arpeggioed mix, which builds and builds before blossoming into a chunk of the original single version. Tepr themselves deliver a steroid-pumped, big room electro monster, rounding things of nicely.