Pepe Deluxé

Pepe Deluxé
Pepe Deluxé's James Spectrum (left) and JA-Jazz
Background information
Origin	Helsinki, Finland
Genres	Breakbeat Big beat Hip hop
Years active	1995–present
Labels	Catskills Records Emperor Norton Records
Website	Official website
Members
James Spectrum JA-Jazz
Former members
DJ Slow

Pepe Deluxé is a Finnish electronic music oriented band which was created by two DJ friends, Vellu Maurola aka DJ Slow and Tomi Paajanen aka JA-Jazz in the mid 90s in Helsinki, Finland. In 1995, James Spectrum aka Jari Salo, joined the band and they started to experiment with sounds of hip hop, big beat, breakbeat and downtempo. DJ Slow departed the band in 2001 to pursue his solo projects.

History

One of Pepe Deluxé's first tracks, called "Call Me Goldfinger" was picked up on the compilation Return of the DJ 2 in 1996.

The band's first EP, Three Times a Player (Tiger) was released in 1998 and it was chosen as the downtempo album of the month on the revered Muzik magazine in the UK. This led to a record deal with Brighton's Catskills Records.

The band's first album, called Super Sound was released 1999. Due to clearance problems (the tracks were heavily sampled), they had to do a new version of the album with many of the tracks re-created with cleared samples or with live instruments. The new version of the album was released subsequently in France, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, USA, Australia and Germany.

The album was noticed by Paul Malmström from Fallon Worldwide advertising agency in New York and the band was asked to write music for an upcoming Lee Jeans ad campaign. Later on, Pepe Deluxé's sound was also noted by another jeans company, Levi's which chose the track "Before You Leave" for their worldwide advertising campaign in 2001.

During this time Pepe Deluxé did several remixes for Finnish underground bands as well as for artists such as Tom Jones, The Cardigans and Eminem. The success of the Levi's ad and the album ensured the band lot of concerts around Europe and USA. After heavy touring, DJ Slow decided to depart from the group.

In 2003 the band returned with their first single from their second album Beatitude. The single, "Salami Fever", was composed together with Paul Malmström who had by this time become a recurrent collaborator with the band. They also created a hilarious music video for the single, which was chosen as Video of the Decade by Bizarre Magazine.

Beatitude also cemented their reputation as wild experimentalists of sound equipment and sampling. The album features 34 different visiting musicians.

In 2005 they were invited to Australia for Terminal 9 tour with Mix Master Mike, Salmonella Dub and others.

In 2006 Pepe Deluxé performed live for the first time in their native Finland.

In spring 2007, they released the first single, "Pussycat Rock", from their third album Spare Time Machine, released in June 2007, with further singles "Go For Blue", released in August 2007, and "Mischief Of Cloud 6", released in September 2007.

On October 10, 2007, "Mischief Of Cloud 6" was used at the beginning of an episode of the ABC drama "Private Practice", entitled "In Which Addison Finds the Magic". ^[1]

Discography

Albums

• Super Sound (1999)
• Beatitude (2003)
• Spare Time Machine (2007)

Remixes

• Tom Jones & the Cardigans - "Burning Down the House (Pepe Deluxé Mix)" (1999)
• Jacknife Lee - "Bursting off the Backbeat (Pepe Deluxé Mix)" (1999)
• Bad Meets Evil - "Nuttin' to Do (Pepe Deluxé Dub)" (2001)

References

External links

• Official website
• Pepe Deluxé at MySpace
• Pepe Deluxé at Discogs
• Interview with The Age newspaper
• Interview with TinyMixTapes.com (March 2009)
• PopMatters article (October 2009