Doctor L
The Great Depression

As a committed sound activist for the past twenty-five years, DOCTOR L moves through musical galaxies like an incandescent comet, ceaselessly fusing. From 80s punk rock to hip hop (with French crew Assassin*), from the start of electronica to the rebirth of international afro-beat…

In 2000, already on the label Comet Records, he was able to bring Lagos ́afro-beat towards the third millennium with the album “Black Voices” by Tony Allen and even send it to the moon, with the disc Psyco on Da Bus.

For the past ten years, Doctor L has been pursuing his vision of a protean kind of music, bringing together the past, present and future in a resounding Big Bang. For the past ten years and in order to meet this mad challenge, Doctor L has been making music continuously in his home studio in Saint Ouen (Paris) and collaborated with many artists from around the world: New York, Paris, London, Lagos, Berlin, Bamako, Marseille…

The whole wide world has visited the second floor of his extravagant HQ to set off for a cosmic elsewhere. Like a painter or sculptor, Doctor L sees this artistic centre as a workshop, where human, audio and graphic stories come to life. The Great Depression is the first piece of a trilogy of meticulously crafted records, a sepia and psychedelic snapshot of a decade spent meeting people, as illustrated by the album cover, which was also devised and designed by Doctor L. From one track to the next, he switches from electric guitar, percussions and synths to bass guitar. And he is also the brains behind the artwork, photographs, videos and so on.

In France, although unknown to the wider public, Doctor L is critically acclaimed and blessed with a dedicated fan-base; he hides his hand, working on many projects under various identities, setting up ephemeral labels, remixing his own albums, far from the music system and in perpetual search for the future of sound.

From “Mystery Travels”, an afro-psychedelic experiment with his jazzmen friends Laurent Fickelson and Vincent Artaud to “Activista”, a track co-written with Martin Perna, who took part in founding Brooklyn’s afrobeat collective Antibalas that is currently touring the world with the Broadway musical FELA! , from “By Surprise”, featuring the legend Tony Allen to “Total Chaos”, which features vocals by Asa and was written by the young folk singer from Nigeria, from “Misery”, a folk, soul and creole ballad co-written by David Walters to “A Family Fear”, with which Liam Farrell and Antibalas revisit the Sly Stone classic “Family Affair”, The Great Depression is a committed and musical, political and poetic record that we’ll never grow tired of!

“The Great Depression” comes out on Comet along with video clips, in particular for the first two singles: “Activista” and “By Surprise”.