After 12 years of instrumental albums, Chilly Gonzales has a lot to get off his chest.
The notebooks that sat unfilled since 2011âs orchestral rap opus âThe Unspeakable Chilly Gonzalesâ started to fill up again in early 2022 after ending a lengthy decade of psychoanalysis. Coincidence? Hardly.
The songs reveal an ongoing tension between persuasion and confession, delusion and self-awareness and finally, gratitude.
Since his track Smothered Mate (from the album Ivory Tower) was chosen as the soundtrack for the French national soccer team’s World Cup victory, Chilly Gonzales has gradually taken steps towards France. While waiting to take his seat at the illustrious AcadĂ©mie Française, he fed his soul with camembert and French literature and released, in 2023, his first album entirely written and composed in the language of MoliĂšre: FRENCH KISS.
To make this record, Chilly Gonzales befriended a new generation of French artists, mixing them with long-time friends and one of his heroes, to whom he cedes his place at the piano for the first time.
On the album, Bonnie Banane, Juliette Armanet, Christine Ott, Arielle Dombasle and Teki Latex rub shoulders, under the benevolent eye of Richard Clayderman…. The velvety and acerbic cover is signed Fabcaro.
“After hearing Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman’s âConsumedâ for the first time, I felt that the recordâs loose use of melody and negative space threatened my musical sensibility. The albumâs unique timing structure pushed me towards an idea of composing accompanying piano pieces (counterparts) for each of the tracks. It would not be a remix. It would be one composer instinctively reacting to – and finding space within â another composer’s already completed work.” Chilly Gonzales
Introducing CONSUMED IN KEY, a reimagining of Plastikmanâs 1998 magnum opus âConsumedâ, as a new collaboration between original artist Richie Hawtin and Chilly Gonzales, executively produced by Tiga.
Album out now and available here, released digitally and as a Triple LP
(100% recycled materials) on April 1st, 2022
â Christmas is a time of very mixed intense emotion for me, and the existing canon often sounds like a forced smile. Christmas is a typical time for superficial happiness, but also a time for reflection and mourning the sad events throughout the year. The songs of A very chilly christmas make room for a more authentic interpretation of this very peculiar 2020 holiday season. â Chilly Gonzales
From feudal oldies to newer holiday pop canon, A very chilly christmas surveys a broad scope of seasonal repertoire and sentiment. Thereâs grandeur and solemnity, thereâs austerity and merriment, an original featuring Feist and covers featuring Jarvis Cocker. And, of course, thereâs Mariah Carey.Â
As a whole, the albumâs gift is the space it creates for quieter moments amid the flurry and noise of the season.
Solo Piano III completes the Solo Piano trilogy. Like any final act, there are complications and consequences, followed by an urgent race to the finish line. Like its predecessors, itâs a mostly happy ending in C major, but there is more dissonance, tension and ambiguity along the way. The musical purity of Solo Piano III is not an antidote for our times, it is a reflection of all the beauty and ugliness around us.
A unique collaboration between Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales, Room 29 asks what the ghosts of Hollywoodâs golden age can tell us about how we came to be where we are today.
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In December 2011, Chilly Gonzales moved his piano into Paris Studio Pigalle.
There, alone for 10 days, he recorded a handful of songs that had made the short list from a hundred or so melodies written over the eight years that had passed since the release of the now iconic Solo Piano. Hour upon hour, the purest and most microscopic process of recording took place. Chilly Gonzales played all the songs over and over and over again, until each oneâs essence had been captured. After years of entertaining with his larger than life musical persona and challenging all artists to work tirelessly to achieve excellence out of respect for their fans, Chilly Gonzales brings us perhaps his most powerful argument of all, the 14 pieces of Solo Piano II.
âThe Unspeakable Chilly Gonzalesâ is the first ever all orchestral rap album. Accompanied by Hollywood swells, tympani rolls, noble French horns, hypnotizing bells and influenced by Prokofiev, Morricone and Phillip Glass among others, this record is Chilly Gonzalesâ âprofessional confessionalâ, revealing more of himself on these monologues than ever before.
A CD of 16 piano themes for left hand accompaniment and right hand melody. A DVD (From Major To Minor) directed by Nina Rhode aka Ninja Pleasure, with the surrealist âMaster Classâ by Professor Gonzales, teaching music theory to real students taken from the audience as well as his friends, featuring Jamie Lidell & Feist on âMelodyâ and Daft Punk on âRhythmâ, the âWhite Gloves Concertâ featuring Jamie Lidell, Mocky and Feist performing each othersâ songs, followed by Chilly Gonzales concert footage, videos, television interviews and the Paris Nuits Blanches âOrganismâ installation by Ninja Pleasure.
Beginning at 23:30 on Saturday May 16th and through 3:00 Monday May 18th, 2009 Chilly Gonzales broke the Guiness World Record for longest concert by a solo artist. The previous record was 26 hours and 12 minutes and was performed by Prasanna Gudi (India) at the Mallikarjun Mansoor Kala Bhavan public auditorium, Dharwad, Karnataka, India from 28 to 29 December 2008. Gonzales explained his motivation: âI will do this to push my muscial and physical stamina. I believe music is part art, part athletics and this 27-hour concert will demonstrate both aspects.â Gonzales had been consulting with the Guiness Book of Record to ensure a smooth attempt and an Official Guinness Judge adjudicated the event on site. Repertoire touched on recognizable songs from all eras and styles of music, in new and surprising arrangements. There was no repetition of material during the attempt. As Gonzales himself said âI will break the record without sounding like a broken recordâ. The record attempt took place at the theatre of notable French film director Claude Lelouch, Theatre CinĂ© 13 in Paris. The attempt in its entirety was streamed live on the web and achieved #2 Twitter Trend status at its peak.
âZâ is a mutated « Best of » : Chilly Gonzales covering Chilly Gonzales by re-recording his own songs from scratch in new styles, with new guests, and with all new vocals and music. Guests Feist, Peaches, Paul PM, Taylor Savvy, Louie Austen and Princess Superstar.
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âThe great Gonzoâs first pop album, a record of such sparkling joy that it makes that S Club Juniors single look like one of Thom Yorkeâs suicide poems. Gonzo fans will be aware of his repertoire since European electro whimsy, piano, and balladry were all stirred and twisted on his full length debut « Ăber Alles », while digital hardcore, hip-hop, mop-styled craziness and snoop-derived rhyme patterns were all fucked up on the classic follow up âThe Entertainistâ. And here, as was hoped, the two meetâ. www.playlouder.com
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He looks like Jon Spencer but sounds more like Eminem, with a lo-fi 808 nightmare pushing Dr. Dre out of the producerâs chair. Still, Gonzales is definitely not the worst MC, as he styles himself on a track heard on his first pure rap LP, The Entertainist. Heâs actually a great rapper, as iconoclastic and inscrutable a figure as Kool Keith or Olâ Dirty Bastard, with an irresistible sense of rhythm, hilarious lyrics, and a raw, kinetic production approach that benefits on several skeletal tracks from Digital Hardcore colleagues Patric Catani and Bomb20. One of the best productions, though, was actually recorded by Gonzalesâ associate Peaches. The track, âFuturistic Ainât Shit to Me,â appears to set out the Chilly Gonzales agenda (âBeing futuristic these days means being futuristic on your own termsâ), though subsequent lyrics (âBeing futuristic means loving worms/Saving your sperm/Wearing your pubes in a permâ) resist any attempt at analysis. Besides rapping white-boy nonsense like Beck or MC Paul Barman (âJimmy Carter in the place to be!/Hanginâ with Chilly G!â), Gonzales also pokes fun at the legion of sex-crazed rappers out there, with amusing parodies (weâre assuming) like âCandyâ and âCum on You.â Itâs unclear whether heâs attempting to save rap from the mainstream blahs or ridicule it out of existence, but The Entertainist is a brilliant left-field hit for fans of oddball hip-hop production and zany lyrics. allmusicguide.com
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BERLIN 2000⊠where it all began⊠the re-released âDirectorâs Cutâ with two previously unreleased tracks from back in the day
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