General Elektriks

Not to be confused with General Electric or General Electric Company.

General Elektriks
Also known as	Hervé Salters, RV
Origin	Paris, France
Genres	Funk pop hip hop jazz electronic
Years active	2003–present

General Elektriks is the musical project of French keyboard player, composer, singer, and producer Hervé Salters. He also uses the moniker RV, a contraction of the pronunciation of his first name in French.^[1]

History

Hervé Salters, a French national and vintage keyboard player, was playing keys for various artists in Paris (Femi Kuti, Matthieu Chedid, Vercoquin, DJ Mehdi) before he moved to San Francisco in 1999.^[2][3] He started working on what would become General Elektriks as he was moving to the US.^[2][4] Once in California, he soon became associated with the Quannum Projects collective (Blackalicious, Lyrics Born, etc.) and started sessioning for them. He invited Quannum's own Lateef The Truthspeaker and Chief Xcel on a few tracks, then completed the 1st General Elektriks album, Cliquety Kliqk (2003).^[5] He released his debut album in 2003, Cliquety Kliqk, which was produced by Chief Xcel from Blackalicious and features a appearance from Lateef the Truth Speaker.^[2] Cliquety Kliqk was recorded on Salters's laptop in the period 2000-2003.^[6][2] Salters continued collaborating with Blackalicious, appearing on their album The Craft.^[7] He began working with Quannum group Honeycut, and released a sophomore full-length, Good City for Dreamers, in 2009.^[8][9] The full-length Parker Street arrived in 2011.

General Elektriks released the full-length To Be a Stranger and a live album, Punk Funk City, in 2016, and the full-length Carry No Ghosts in 2018.^[10] Also in 2018, he appeared at the Nice Jazz Festival.^[11]

Discography

• Cliquety Kliqk (Quannum Projects, Bleu Electric; The Audio Kitchen, 2003)
• Good City for Dreamers (Quannum, 2009)
• Parker Street (Discograph, 2011)
• To Be a Stranger (The Audio Kitchen, 2016)
• Punk Funk City (Live) (The Audio Kitchen, 2016)
• Carry No Ghosts (Wagram Music, 2018)
• Party Like a Human (Wagram Music / 3ème Bureau, 2021)

References

1. Artist Tips: General Elektriks. XLR8R, October 23, 2009.
2. General Elektriks biography, Allmusic
3. General Elektriks review^{[permanent dead link‍]}. okayplayer, 2015.
4. "General Elektriks : "Les punks nous ont balancé des Tampax et craché dessus"" [General Elektriks: "The punks threw Tampax at us and spit on it"]. Télérama (in French). 2018-02-01. Retrieved 2020-04-27.
5. Cliquety Kliqk album review, Allmusic
6. General Elektriks. Broward New Times, September 8, 2005.
7. Cliquety Kliqk review. Prefix Magazine, August 22, 2005.
8. Good City for Dreamers review. XLR8R, October 12, 2009.
9. Good City for Dreamers review. Exclaim!, September 17, 2009.
10. Carry No Ghosts review. Les Oreilles Curieuses, February 13, 2018.
11. General Elektriks. Nice Jazz Festival.

External links

• Official website
• General Elektriks discography at Discogs