It’s been nine years since Lucien Nicolet’s first record, and in that time he has earned his place among electronic dance music’s most celebrated names. Throughout his career, the Swiss-Chilean musician has experimented liberally with longer formats, including a live album for Thomas Brinkmann’s max.Ernst label and 2004’s ‘No Model No Tool‘, a recombinant set of groove components. But in all this time he has released only one proper studio album, 2004’s Blind Behaviour, which veered away from the dancefloor in search of more esoteric pleasures. At long last, with ‘Tribute to the Sun‘, Luciano delivers one of the definitive highlights of his career.



Not merely a ‘dance’ or ‘electronic’ record, Tribute incorporates musical styles from around the globe with Luciano’s inimitable rhythmic sensibility. It draws upon Luciano’s extensive experience as a mover of bodies and a reader of the crowd’s mind. Many of its grooves form an integral part of Luciano’s DJ sets, having been road-tested and continually refined.

Four years in the making, the album finds Luciano collaborating with a cast of musicians as talented as they are diverse. Martina Topley-Bird, of course, is known for her haunting contributions to Tricky’s early classics, as well as for her solo career and collaborations with the likes of Danger Mouse and Mike Patton. Senegal’s Ali Boulo Santo, heir to a long line of griots and nephew of the legendary ‘King of the Kora’ Soundioulou Cissoko, was said to be ‘born with a Kora in his hands’; he pioneered an electronic fusion of Mandingue Afrobeat in his recordings for Frédéric Galliano’s Frikyiwa label, and here his contributions continue to expand the possibilities for ‘world’ music in new contexts. Switzerland’s Bruno Bieri is the inventor of the Hang, a kind of steel drum with a sound like a mountain stream; ‘Hang for Bruno’ features both his limpid melodies and the contributions of the Israeli percussionist Omri Hason, a student of the Iranian master Djamchid Chemirani. Omri Is also part of Luciano’s live project Aether Nation

01 Los Ninos de Fuera
02 Celestial feat. Liberty by Keren Ann
03 Sun, Day and Night feat. Martina Topley-Bird
04 Conspirer
05 Hang For Bruno
06 Fran Left Home
07 Africa Sweat feat. Ali Boulo Santo
08 Pierre For Anni
09 Metodisma
10 Oenologue

Tribute To The Sun will be released on 12th October 2009.