Benoit & Sergio

Benoit & Sergio

Sergio (left) and Benoit (right) perform at the Piknic Électronik in Montreal on 3 June 2012
Background information
Origin Washington, D.C.
Genres
Years active 2009–present
Labels
Members Benoit Simon, Benjamin "Sergio" Myers

Benoit & Sergio are a dance pop and house music duo composed of Benoit Simon and Benjamin "Sergio" Myers and based out of Washington, D.C. and Berlin.[1][2] Their music has been described as an intelligent and often melancholy mix of pop and electronic music intended for dance but outside the mainstream of electronic dance music.[1][3] They describe their sound as "dance pop with a slightly melancholy feel to it".[2]

Biography and origins

Benoit Simon was born and raised in Paris.[4] From an early age, he showed an interest in the electronics, especially as they related to sound.[4] As a youth, he created music on an Atari home computer with his childhood friend and made himself a Vocoder.[2][4] He also played some guitar.[2] Inspired by the emerging genre of French house, and by Daft Punk in particular, Simon began making electronic music in earnest in 1995. For his day job, he worked in voice recognition and speech synthesis, work that led him to move to Boston in 2002.[4]

Benjamin "Sergio" Myers is from the small town of Fairfield, Iowa, the son of a professor.[4] As a youth, he played rock guitar, but never wrote music or joined a band.[2] He attended the University of Chicago as an undergraduate and then began working towards a PhD in Renaissance literature at Johns Hopkins.[4] After a DJ friend introduced him to the electronic music scene in Berlin one summer, he was inspired to begin making electronic music. As his interests became increasingly focused on music, he quit graduate school to devote more time to it.[2] Moving to Washington, D.C., he taught English at St. Albans School while continuing to focus on his music.[4][5] During this time, he released several tracks on Wolf + Lamb Records under the name Sergio Giorgini, which he later referred to as "very sporadic, rudimentary things."[6]

Myers and Simon met in May 2008 at the birthday party of a mutual friend in the D.C. neighborhood of Adams Morgan.[2][5] By this time, Simon was living in D.C., still pursuing his interest in electronic music while working his day job.[4] About eight months after meeting, the duo began making music together in Simon's studio.[4][7] Within two months, they produced the tracks "Full Grown Man" and "What I've Lost",[4] which were released on the What I've Lost EP in November 2009 to favorable reviews.[8] What I've Lost was their first release under the name Benoit & Sergio.[9] Further successful releases followed in the 2009–10 school year.[5]

In the summer of 2010, Myers quit his teaching job at St. Albans and moved to Berlin to work on music full time. His decision was partly influenced by his increasing discomfort with leading a double life as a high school teacher by day and electronic music artist by night, especially after his students discovered his music online. “They were singing ‘Full Grown Man’ in the halls," he later remembered, "I was stressed about it, singing about cocaine when you’re supposed to be a role model.”[5] Another factor in Myers's decision was his father's cancer diagnosis, which prompted him to examine his own life. "I thought that if I was still doing the same job in 30 years, I could be where my dad is," he recalled, "and I'd always have this what-if feeling."[10]

While Simon initially stayed in D.C., the two continued to collaborate on their music, preferring to meet up to work together in person.[5][11] In 2011, the duo became well-established in the electronic music world following the January release of the hit track "Walk & Talk", which Myers described as "sort of a zeitgeist song."[4][11] They also received playtime on BBC Radio 1 as part of Seth Troxler’s mix on the show Essential Mix.[11] Their success was recognized at the end of the year when they were named the iTunes Breakthrough Electronic Artists of the Year and one of Resident Advisor's Top 10 Live Acts of 2011.[12] The duo continue to enjoy success in the electronic music scene.[6][12]

Style and influences

Benoit & Sergio's music is often described as melancholy[1][7][13] and intelligent.[2][6][14] The duo have described their own sound as "dance pop with a slightly melancholy feel to it" (or more poetically as "Cadillac Caribbean dance pop under an autumnal sky" and "an alloy of copper and silk").[2] They have been noted for staying outside the mainstream of electronic music, maintaining an emphasis on lyrics and vocals[2][3] and a pop sensibility.[1][3][15] In a 2013 interview, Sergio expressed the duo's take on mainstream electronic music: "We love dance culture. It’s not like we’re all, ‘Ugh, the scene’s going to hell’. But other things can be dancey and interesting than a 4/4 kick drum. You don’t have to have this huge bass line destroying your intestines."[1] Benoit & Sergio generally do not consider themselves to be DJs, preferring to play live shows of mostly their own music.[4][7][11]

Benoit & Sergio cite a wide variety of influences from electronic artists such as Isolee, Thomas Melchior, and Ricardo Villalobos to rock musicians, including Talking Heads, Pavement, Roxy Music, and Paul Simon.[13] The duo have described differences in their individual influences despite their shared musical taste, with Benoit being more influenced by disco and Sergio being more influenced by rock.[7] These influences are unusual for electronic artists,[13] and Sergio has described them as contributing to the difference between the duo's sound and mainstream electronic music.[2]

Releases

Awards and accolades

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Brown, August (4 October 2013). "Benoit & Sergio make 'Adjustments' to dance music culture". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Mendelson, Katie (12 October 2011). "Discovery: Benoit & Sergio". Interview. Archived from the original on 8 July 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 Schweitzer, Ally (7 October 2013). "Listen: Benoit & Sergio's Adjustments EP". Washington City Paper. Archived from the original on 10 October 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Matos, Michaelangelo (21 September 2011). "Q&A: Benoit & Sergio on Hooking Up With DFA, the DC Dance Scene, and Disco-Cheese Love". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Richards, Chris (15 December 2011). "Benoit & Sergio: Burning up the dance floor". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  6. 1 2 3 Glitch, Freddie (14 January 2014). "Exclusive Interview with Benoit & Sergio". Deep House Amsterdam. Archived from the original on 2 November 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Remise, Antoine. "Benoit & Sergio". Time Out Istanbul in English. Archived from the original on 3 July 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  8. ↑ Lynch, Will (24 November 2009). "Benoit & Sergio – What I've Lost". Resident Advisor. Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  9. 1 2 "Benoit & Sergio – Discography". GEIST. GEIST Agency. Archived from the original on 30 May 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  10. ↑ Dombal, Ryan (5 November 2012). "Benoit & Sergio". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 1 November 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Todosijevic, Zlatko (16 January 2012). "Interview with Benoit & Sergio". Soundfuse. Archived from the original on 24 October 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  12. 1 2 Sundius, Michael (14 October 2015). "Listen to Benoit & Sergio's New Vocal Single 'House With 500 Rooms': Exclusive Premiere". Billboard. Archived from the original on 21 October 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  13. 1 2 3 "Benoit & Sergio". Resident Advisor. Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  14. ↑ Schweitzer, Ally (25 January 2013). "Benoit & Sergio at U Street Music Hall". Washington City Paper. Archived from the original on 16 February 2016. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  15. ↑ "EX.168 Benoit and Sergio". Resident Advisor. 4 October 2013. Archived from the original on 9 July 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  16. ↑ "Benoit & Sergio Discography". Discogs. Archived from the original on 23 October 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
  17. ↑ "Benoit & Sergio – Bio". GEIST. GEIST Agency. Archived from the original on 30 March 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2016.

External links

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