MINIZZA is Franck Marguin and Geoffroy Montel. They met in Lyons, France, during the 90s, but only began doing music together in 2001, after attending an Atom Heart concert during the Transmusicales festival in Rennes.

Their first productions were remixes for Röyksopp (Poor Leno), Erik Arnaud (Je vis à 50%), though unreleased at that time.

While working on their first album, they met Erlend Øye, half of the acoustic duo Kings of Convenience, who kindly asked them to participate on his first electro solo album, Unrest (Source), his first single, Sudden Rush (Source), and he also included their Winning a battle, losing the war cover on his acclaimed DJ Kicks (!K7).

Music for girls, their first album, is a crossover between pop, industrial, cold-wave, musique concrete, as well as bossa nova, funk and rock (!). It may sounds odd until you see the guests in this debut album : Edward Ka-Spel, the charismatic leader of The Legendary Pink Dots; french rocker Erik Arnaud; sound designer Roel Meelkop (Goem, Kapotte Muziek); Daniel Palomo Vinuesa (Collectif Serendipity, Signatures / Radio France).

In 2006, as a trio (with Daniel Palomo Vinuesa), they performed a new piece, Aquarium dedicated to Terrence Malick, for the Epsilonia festival on Radio Libertaire, Paris. This piece is still unreleased.

In 2007, they created a radio piece, Alfred Hitchcock, for legendary radio show Tapage Nocturne on French national radio France Musique run by Bruno Letort. It features samples from some of the director's movies, archives from the radio, and original music.

In 2008, Electroni[k] festival invited Minizza to play an original dark ambient work inspired by Chantal Akerman silent movie Hotel Monterey. This work, their first as a quatuor (with David Sanson and Rainier Lericolais) was then recorded at Radio France studio and broadcast on Tapage Nocturne radio show in May 2009. The resulting CD will be released in 2011 on Brocoli.

In June 2010, Rainier Lericolais joined the band as a permanent member and they performed a new work, Into the trees, a suite of atmospheric electronics pop songs and field recordings, commissionned by the domaine départemental de Chamarande. And yes, they actually performed under the trees. The band played this work again for Brocoli 5th anniversary festival at Les Instants Chavirés (Montreuil). This piece should be released sometimes in the future.

Selected discography

• Hotel Monterey, elevator on Rainier Lericolais Abstracks compilation (2011)
• Monoball on DJ Detect compilation (2006)
• Music for girls (Brocoli / 2005)
• Alter Ego on re: Courrier Electronique by Rainier Lericolais (Optical Sound / 2005)
• Winning a battle, losing the war, on Erlend Øye's DJ Kicks (!K7 / 2004) amongst other collaborators: Phoenix, Cornelius, The Rapture, Morgan Geist, Röyksopp, etc.
• Sudden Rush par Minizza on the E.P. Sudden Rush by Erlend Øye (Source / 2003)
• The Athlete on Erlend Øye’s album Unrest (Source / 2003)

Live appearances

• February 4th 2011, Poitiers, Confort Moderne : DJ Mix
• December 16th 2010, Montreuil, Les Instants Chavirés : Into the trees, live performance
• June 2010, domaine départemental de Chamarande : Into the trees, live performance
• October 11th 2008, St Brieuc, Electroni[k] festival : Hotel Monterey, live performance
• February 29th 2008, Reims, La Cartonnerie : DJ Mix
• October 18th 2008, Reims, La Cartonnerie, Electricity festival : DJ Mix
• April 12th 2007, Paris, OPA : DJ Mix
• 2007, Paris, Café de la Danse : DJ Mix
• October 5th 2006, Paris, OPA : Aquarium, live performance
• December 28th 2005, Paris, Neuf Billards : DJ Mix