Les Dupont

On the scene before, during and after the French touch, Les Dupont are an electronic duo created by Didier Blasco-Giavitto and Louis-Frédéric Apostoly at Nice's Fine Arts school.

The major years

In 1995 they joined forces with the Omnisonus/Polygram team and artists Dax Riders, Pacman, Roussia, Djul'z, and Armand. Les Dupont were noted for their acclaimed record production and live performances (le Rex, SIR. CUS Cybernaut, Festival de Wattrelos). They released their first LP, Miracle (1996), a first IDM album "à la française," somewhere between ambient, house and atmospheres verging on cinematic jazz. They also remixed the single Sound of Mo by Frederick Rousseau, striking for its originality and Asian sounds — opening the way to what would later be called ethno-lounge.

During these "major years" at Polygram, the duo alternated between house and ambient productions. Influenced by Coil, SPK and Throbbing Gristle, they also recorded hardcore music, featuring on compilations such as Hardcore Fever Vol. I & II and Hardcore Cybermix. They worked with Liza 'N' Eliaz and Manu Le Malin on the maxi EP Hardcore Fever EP-Extreme Vinyl. Their single Cinetik Rex became a reference among hardcore DJs.

Independent label

In 2000, Les Dupont created their own label, Lysis, and released their second album, Renaissance — an homage to the Palace, to house and new-beat, weaving in literary inserts from Jean Cocteau and Verlaine. After a concert at the Technoparade, they released the electroclash single I Feel in 2004, which reached third place on Fréquence Spé.

The hardcore trilogy

In 2005, Les Dupont returned to their industrial roots with three albums on Apocalypse Records — Black Metal, In Nocturno and Hiroshima 10 Tracks — a trilogy expressing the violence society pushes onto youth and its subcultures. The maxi vinyls Cineteek Rexx and Der Geist/Phase II followed on Multiplayer.

Tales From The Ambient House Vol.1

With Tales From The Ambient House Vol.1, the group recreated an original polychromatic ambient house, mixing elegant electro-pop, voluptuous house, and cinematic jazz — using Verlaine's poetry, the title Élégie recalling Miracle.

Transmission, The Best Of

In 2009, the group released their first best-of, compiled from seven previous studio albums, remastered and respecting chronology — a witness to their pioneering 90s period, when Anna Karina whispered in Miracle: "We live in the shadows of our metamorphosis…"

Back to hardcore, back to ambient

Cineteek Rexx — its opening track Hiroshima a direct reference to Marguerite Duras — wove in tunes by Prokofiev and Wagner, the voice of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, and an ecology speech from the 1992 Rio World Summit, fluctuating permanently between hardcore and dark-ambient. On the other end of the spectrum, Film Music Theory stood as a sound background inspired by Erik Satie, John Cage, Fluxus and Marcel Duchamp.

Machine Symphony & the live albums

In 2011, Machine Symphony showed the full range of Les Dupont's ambient music, from the medieval-sounding Magical Ring to the clubbish The Storm, including Arctic Gymnopédie, a "polar" orchestration of Erik Satie's composition. Two live albums followed: Live Technopol, with singer Nadège Leroy, and Live MPPM, a raw hardcore set recorded in Marseille.

Return to IDM

Skyline (2012) marked a return to IDM. In 2013, Arctic Gymnopédie — a rearrangement of Erik Satie's first Gymnopédie, edited to footage from Méliès' Conquering the Pole — won the Public Domain Remix competition and was released under a free license. The same year, 13 evolved as a sharper, more techno response to Skyline, followed in 2014 by the remix album 13 Remixed. That year the duo also developed audiovisual performances mixing visual perception and listening, including Someone Else's Dream / Crash, drawing on Gilles Deleuze, Prokofiev, Wagner, and Hindenburg archival footage.

Published in 2015, Reflections compiled tracks from 1995–2006. The same year, Dark Sides closed the hardcore chapter begun a decade earlier with the Black Metal — In Nocturno — Hiroshima 10 Trax trilogy.

15th anniversary

In 2016, label Lysis turned 15 with DesignforDreaming, a journey into ambient-house tinged with jazz and dub, dotted with literary and film references — including Chantal Goya quoting Jean-Luc Godard.

The Greek album

Athenæum (2017) took the listener through Greek mythology — Ouranos, Kronos, Nyx — in a dreamy, supernatural mood, with the single Statues.

First cover album

In 2017 the duo recorded a cover of ELO's I'm Alive for Brice Dellsperger's art film Body Double 35, and a remix of Grândola, Vila Morena for a documentary on Lisbon. This led to the covers album Looking Through, featuring guitarist Vinícius K Macedo, singer Julien Loko and countertenor Andreas Scholl — topping European iTunes charts.

Programmed Memories, the SF album

In 2018, Programmed Memories embraced a vintage-yet-avant-garde, synthetic and robotic style around themes of science fiction and man-machine transmutation. The duo also composed for Rémi Lange's film L'œuf dure and Brice Dellsperger's video installations at Villa Arson.

Soundtrack, the modular album

Soundtrack redrew 70s mushroom music into a contemporary, cosmic wonderland, recorded with modular synthesis between Nice and Paris — among the duo's most experimental work.

Rainbow Days & Rainbow World

In 2020, Les Dupont returned with a more relaxed, assertive suite drawing on house, hip hop and contemporary electro. Rainbow World, a twin album, mixed in the colours of French touch and 90s new beat. The duo also released an electro-rock cover of Plastic Bertrand's Tout Petit La Planète, featuring retro-wave singer Madmoizel. Rainbow Mixes later gathered remixes of both albums.

Back to ambient again

In 2021, Music for Ghosts grew from a theme originally written for France Culture into a full album — a return to industrial roots and a new, meditative direction. Tales From The Ambient House Vol.2 followed in 2022, twelve years after its predecessor, recreating the ambient polychromy of the early days.

Cover albums with Jean-Luc Verna

In 2022, Les Dupont reunited with visual artist Jean-Luc Verna, a fellow Villa Arson alumnus, for Screwing Up Some Classics — drawing on Siouxsie & The Banshees, Bauhaus, Depeche Mode and jazz standards. Screwing Up Some Classics II and two remix albums followed.

Lost & Found — the unreleased tracks

Lost & Found gathered previously unreleased rehearsal room recordings made in Nice between 1990 and 2021 — an insight into the young band before Miracle.

Reissues

In 2023, label Sunny Crypt reissued the duo's sought-after debut EP Sur l'Eau (1994), remastered with the bonus track Outremer. The same year, Les Dupont reunited with Frédérick Rousseau to add contemporary remixes to Sound of Mo, the pioneering ethno-lounge track they had remixed back in 1995.

Sacred Songs

In 2024, Les Dupont joined forces with vocal ensemble Beata Mvsica, specialists in 17th-century sacred works, for Sacred Songs — blending baroque chant with electronic beats into a sound at once timeless and avant-garde.

30th anniversary

In 2025, marking thirty years of music, Les Dupont released 30 Electronic Pictures, a landmark compilation tracing three decades of electronic creation, aesthetic brilliance, political irony, and experimentation.

2026 — an electronic and cinematic odyssey

With Trans i-D Reworks Vol.1, Les Dupont unveiled their twenty-sixth album, opening a new chapter while retaining the cinematic, contemplative atmospheres that define their sound — an immersive listening experience evoking the hypnotic momentum of trance and psy-trance. This release inaugurates a four-part series, now continuing with Vol.2, out July 1, 2026.