If the quality of a band is proportional to the difficulty to classify it, then IDEM are doubtlessly a group of very high quality. Urban Dub? Organic Indus Electro-noise? Heavy Ambient? Free Rock? Make up your own mind… However, you can only hail the huge originality of the trio from Nantes whose talent has often been praised by the most important French media. (Telerama, Libération, France Inter, RFI, Arte, Trax, Magic, Rock Sound,Coda Mag …) Since 1999, these three guys have been exploring the lowest depths of human conscience while feeding themselves with its paradoxes. And because the task is hard, IDEM have rapidly become aware that their art would need to free themselves from the already existing frontiers, to get out of the reassuring conventions. More than a mere music group, the trio can be proud of its being a real multimedia project in which the strength of the pictures compete with the beauty of the lights. In their work regarding stage science and videos, this band from Nantes draws his inspiration from the classy pre-war black and white silent films and from Max Ernst’s Dadaist collages, and reaches a highly suggestive result. Associated at the beginning to the French post-hardcore scene (Hint, Bästard, Portobello Bones…)

IDEM have gradually freed themselves from the evident link with their big brothers to go and flirt with electronic atmospheres, evidently still dark but more voluptuous and rounded, in the style of Sofa Surfers or Amon Tobin… A music with suspiciously calm periods as well as highly devastating fits of anger, with an everlasting wave of soul between celestial heights and abyssal depths, between aerial guitars and underground infrabasses…

The trio will soon release his sixth album and therefore is preparing a new show for his promotion on stage, everywhere in France and abroad. The compositions have been simplified, yet they are still highly efficient and the group controls its purpose more tightly than ever. For almost ten years of experience and independence, IDEM have had the opportunity to perform with the most famous French or international names (cf Amon Tobin, Bauchkland, Dub Trio, Mad Professor, Erik Truffaz, Ez3kiel, Zenzile, High Tone, Lab°, Vitalic, Miss Kittin, Hint, The Herbaliser, La Phaze, Hexstatic, and so many) and they have been on the programmes of the most demanding festivals (Festival Printemps de Bourges, Télérama Dub Festival (Paris), Scopitone (Nantes), Festival des Musiques Volantes (Metz), La Nuit du Dub (Clermont-Ferrand), Panorama Festival (Morlaix), Microcosm (La Roche/Yon)…). Yet this new creation raises the multidisciplinary standard even higher . It is indeed difficult to know where the shivers running down your spine come from. Does it come from those inescapable rhythmic ascents? From Stephanie Sourisseau’s blazing light show? From Bruno Brevet’s biting dubs assailing the frontage? From the sepulchral voice of the gothic diva, Isabelle “Pitch” Ortoli, recurrently invited by the trio? Or does it come from these sickly video projections impregnating your cortex for a long time?

IDEM’s music admits no label. So, sticking one would be no use and inevitably against nature. If you really want to find any consanguinity, look for clues towards Massive Attack , Erik Satie, Nine Inch nails or Mogwaï, among so many others, even more disconcerting. It may be more explicit after all to say that their work would be a sensational soundtrack for Maurice G. Dantec’s science-fiction films, for the American film-maker David Lynch’s film scenes with schizophrenic tendencies, or for Enki Bilal’s frost comic strips.

Music for the eyes, pictures for the ears…