Senator Gary
They Are Dangerous

Stix Records, a sub-label of Favorite Recordings, proudly presents Scary Dub, a new project by Mato, made of exclusive Dub versions of some of the most famous horror movie soundtracks. Available as Vinyl LP & Digital on February 5th 2021.Do you remember The Exorcist, Halloween, Jaws, Evil Dead, The Twilight Zone or The Return Of The Living Dead and their haunting musical themes? Imagine all and many more remixed by the French dub master, along with three original and scary compositions. Needless to say, Mato, who’s playing most instruments and synthesizers, did a fantastic job and you’ll be blown when hearing these versions.Starting his reggae production career in 2006, Thomas Blanchot (aka Mato) has released music through various projects on EDR Records, Big Singles or Makasound... In the meantime he developed a real trademark: taking over classics French, Hip-Hop, OST, Classical or Pop song, into roots reggae-dub new versions. Besides, since 2010, Mato has built a solid reputation thanks to his hot remixes of Hip-Hop classics on Stix Records.

Mediterranean pop songs screwed with dirty RnB sounds. Disorientating, freudian slip disco edit takes to the clubs; up-tempo, left of field and a down right dub siren infused banger - confused yet? Slow-mo dub melting in the heat of the eternal summer, untether yourself and drift away.

Frédéric Gassita discovered music at the age of five. In 1977 he left Gabon to study in France. His tutors in France spotted the talent of the young man and decided to enroll him at the Conservatory of Music in Châteauroux, where he learned classical music, composition, and perfected his practice of piano, bass and guitar.Back in Gabon in 1983, Frédéric decided to form the band "Surprise" with his longtime friend Jean-Jean Gateau. His musical influences – his parents introduced him to a lot of music: Afro-Cuban music, Jazz, Soul or RnB. - forged the sound of the band as well as a strong inspiration from the US Funk that invaded the radio waves of Gabon. The Guitarist Célestin Assélé Bongo joined the band and provided them the necessary means to record an album. Florence Nang Ekomye, a talented self-taught jazz singer, is immediately recruited, being the voice of Surprise.Benefiting from the unique recording conditions of Studio N'Koussou in Libreville (set-up by Patience Dabany in the early 80s), one of the handful studios to use a Digital 48 Tracks recorder at the time, the young musicians had the strong desire to get the perfect sound: "It took us almost a year to finish the album. We were young and we wanted to do the best we could so we dithered a lot on the choice of songs ..." The result is a sensational production, the use of synthesizers is slamming and the charm of Florence’s voice makes the recording quite unique.Beleive Me is an outbreak considering what was being done in Gabon at the same time. Indeed, the vast majority of small Gabonese bands were still mimicking the sound of James Brown in cabarets… The record unfortunately did not meet the success the band expected and seemed to have never really benefited from a real marketing. A year after the release of Beleive Me, Frédéric flew to the U.S. and joined the Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied for six years; the band never recorded together again.Totally unknown until recently, Surprise, primarily an early work from the great composer, still sounds fresh and crisp and we hope it will now get the attention it did not get upon release.

Thomas Blanchot, 40 years old percussionist and drummer, started his production structure Mato Production in 2001, with which he collaborated and directed for many projects.Composer, music publisher and producer of music for TV, advertising, films and records, he also began a career as reggae producer since 2006, under the name "MATO". Since then he’s released music through various projects concepts, coming out through labels such as Makasound, EDR Records or Big Singles. In the meantime he developed a real trademark: taking over classics French, Hip-Hop, or Pop song, into roots Reggae-Dub new versions.Besides since 2010, Mato’s built a solid reputation thanks to his many remixes of Hip-Hop classics on Stix Records. It is therefore natural to find him back with a new attractive concept on the Favorite Recordings’ sub-label: seasoning the notorious "Homework" by Daft Punk, with his special Reggae-Dub sauce.Once again Mato achieves a brilliant rendition with this “Homework Dub”, making almost dreadlocks grow on the French robots’ heads! Using kick-effects, delays and roaring bass, he reinvents one of the most famous albums of electronic music, as if it was straight-out from Scientist, King Tubby or Mad Professor’ studios in Jamaica.

African, funky, sarcastic, bewitching, green, ecstatic: these words collide to describe Vaudou Game and all of them are true.Noussin is the fourth album of the french Afro Funk band. Forced into lockdown, like much of the planet, Peter Solo and his Vaudou Game had no choice but to retreat into the studio. A reunion to once again invoke the spiritual forces of the Voodoo Deities. A reunion that was Initially imagined for an EP…yet these spiritual forces behind that imagination yearned for something more, and as we all know, these forces are impossible to push away once they have decided to stay. Under the strain enforced by the current socioeconomic climate, as much as by the environmental peril that faces us all today - they diverted the course of the groove towards daring new vibrations. Without extinguishing or diminishing its highly communicative power, they released Vaudou Game from its origins of pure Afro-Funk to gradually engage into compositions which crystallized themselves into tones resembling more rock than funk. On this fourth album, with an entirely revisited line-up, Peter Solo separates for the first time in his career from his brassy guard, leaving saxophone, trumpet and trombone outside to invite an arsenal of keyboards to define, with him, this new voodoo sound. A sound, as usual, built on vintage and precise analogical material - grime even on the white side of the tape, a blunt instrument used to blanket anything that strived to shine too much in the mix.Graced with tapered guitars stringing out rhythmic bumps or withdrawing a few beats to indulge in infectious solos, this album is boisterously alive with vintage 70's Funk, infused with a few digressions into other ethers of the funk timeline, nicking different sounds and frequencies to render the black and white keys of an inspired keyboard to reach new euphoric levels of melodic acidity. Tearing off the enigmatic mask to reveal his true face: on a few titles, Peter Solo ventures outside of his sacred voodoo range to reconnect with his London years, these titles feature small nods to the time he spent in “The Smoke” where the incantations of British music culture were written within him.Noussin which means “Stay strong” in Mina, a dialect spoken in the south-west of Togo. Noussin, a message of hope as much as a call to come together to weather the turmoil and to come out better on the other side. Don’t let them grind you down…Noussin!