General Elektriks (Herve Salters) released his debut album Cliquety Kliqk through Quannum Records back in 2005.   Now GE’s got a new album due in February, Good City For Dreamers.  He’s also letting fans download 5 of the new tracks for free.  Go to the official website and click “New GE tracks for free” at the top right.  Here’s the link: http://www.general-elektriks.com/

Pretty sure the new album will be released through Quannum as well.  Salters’ label mates include my highschool favorites DJ Shadow, Blackalicious (Gift of Gab and Chief Xcel), Latyrx (Lyrics Born and Lateef), Lifesavas, and a bunch of others.  The track I really like is “Coming Up For Air” which features Lateef my highschool favorite of them all.  The rest of the tracks suggest that the new album will have a much more familiar hip hop feel to it.  To be honest, I’m not sure this is a good thing.  The appeal of the debut album was the dynamic between the experimental style and sound, which is what makes it original and unique, and the album’s similarity to other more familiar acts, which is what makes it comfortable for most people to listen to.  So if the new album is all hip hoppy and unoriginal, if it doesn’t continue in the new direction the last album was going, it’ll just be another case of “been there, heard that.”  But “Coming Up For Air” gives me hope.  The guy sampled “Arrow Through Me” by Paul McCartney for the beat and turned the original song’s intro into a cinematic, sinister masterpiece of a beat. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating but it’s definitely some good-shit.com!  That’s not a link.  Here’s some history on General Elektriks-

“By the time he was 14 year old, the Parisian Hervé Salters, also known as RV, and the man behind the electro-jazzy General Elektriks, was playing keyboards and synthesizers with local bands around London and Paris.  Six years later, he had discovered the Clavinet, Wurlizter, Hammond B-3, and Fender Rhodes, the latter of which is highlighted on General Elektriks’ debut album, Cliquety Kliqk. Salters’ expertise with “vintage sound” led him to recording gigs on Femi Kuti’s 1999 album Shoki Shoki…” -Allmusic.com