BIBI TANGA & THE SELENITES

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Parisian groove theorists

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Parisian groove theorists Bibi Tanga and The Selenites return in 2012 with 40 ° of Sunshine, their second release for the Nat Geo Music label. Due out on late spring 2012, 40 ° of Sunshine was recorded in the studio after a two month African tour, and it’s the group’s most warm, relaxed and deeply poetic recording yet.

“The whole band was in a more sunny and happy place for the recording of this album,” says frontman/bandleader Bienvenu (Bibi) Tanga, “which took place after an African tour that brought us to 12 hot countries. Our relationships as musicians and as friends were reinforced by this long tour, and the album is more sunny than the previous ones. On the first two albums, the moon was our central symbol figure, this time it’s the sun”.

The album’s title track, “40 ° of Sunshine”, was also inspired by this experience, as Bibi explains: “40 ° of Sunshine takes some poetic license. It’s a story that imagines what would happen if alcohol were replaced by liquid sunshine; 40 ounces of bottled sunshine”.

It’s been two years since the world was introduced to Bibi and Selenites on Dunya, their 2010 release for Nat Geo Music, but the group’s unique retro-futurist vision and smooth, Afro-Parisian sound remain intact on 40 Degrees of Sunshine. And their longtime producer and collaborator, le Professeur Inlassable, was once again at the controls in his studio near the banks of the Seine on the left bank of Paris, polishing the group’s sound to a luxurious sheen.

For those who missed out on Bibi Tanga’s international debut, here’s the recap: Born in Bangui in 1969,the dusty capital of the Central African Republic, Bienvenu (Bibi) Tanga didn’t see his homeland until the age of 2, when his parents brought him back from Paris where they moved just after he was born. Growing up, Bibi was one of 7 children and spent his earliest years shuttling from Paris to Africa to Moscow to Washington, D.C., and Brooklyn, thanks to his father’s diplomatic postings. Eventually Bibi’s family ended up living in the suburbs of Paris, where he became a musical omnivore – devouring British new wave, African pop, and American blues and R&B in equal doses. As a teenager, Bibi learned guitar, bass and saxophone – and even took up tap dancing.

In 2000 Bibi – by now fronting his own band – teamed up with Professeur Inlassable (the tireless professor), and never looked back. A student of early decades of French popular music, Le Professeur adds a whole new dimension to Bibi Tanga’s sound, recreating lost musical soundscapes that invoke echoes of Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg. Together with Bibi’s band The Selenites – Arthur Simonini on violin and keyboards, Rico Kerridge on guitar and Arnaud Biscay on drums – Bibi and Le Professeur craft an otherworldly sound.

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