Cine + Musique = Radiomentale Night

Radiomentale showcased their style of creating new soundtracks for silent and classic experimental films in the city Wednesday evening. The electronic music, sound artist and DJ duo Jean-Yves Leloup and Eric Pajot got together in 1992, to bring this music form to the front stage. It is therefore, not surprising that Jean and Eric often are known as the pioneers of ‘cinemix’ which is an audiovisual performing practice popular in France.

Jean-Yves Leloup, born in Paris, is a sound-artist, DJ, critic, journalist and a curator, specialising in electronic music, contemporary art and new technologies. Eric Pajot, born in Bourgogne is a visual artist, a musician and a DJ. The duo started their career in the mid 90’s with their own radio show by drawing on an eclectic range of audio sources, including sound experiments, movie soundtracks, ambient music, experimental and electronic music, natural sounds, fragment of interviews and human voice. Radiomentale is the outcome of that endeavor – but in a new, creative and innovative form!

Organised by Alliance Francaise,  the Radiomentale performance in central Delhi on 26 June bought together an audience with majority of youngsters who enjoyed the cinemix show followed by a DJ mash up for about an hour adding to the mesmerized and lively ambience. The film screened in the evening for this cine-concert was a rework of The General (USA, 1927) film by Buster Keaton which made an interesting combination of an American film with French duo DJ’s  music. The film is an adventure-epic classic, comedy film. The  audience got to form a whole new perspective of watching mute films with the Radiomentale style of music. 

RadioMentale are on a six- city tour with this show and other cities on the list are - Bangalore, Trivandrum, Chennai, Pune and Mumbai. Their performances have also been witnessed in various international venues such as Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Kassel’s Documenta, Luxembourg Mudam, Paris Cité de la musique, Cartier Foundation and more.