From the influential French label F Communications, comes Bienvenida, the debut album from Alexis Mauri (AKA Alexkid). Mauri is an incredibly talented and accomplished artist/DJ/programmer whose work as a solo artist and collaborator offers a multi-genre electronic style that never strays far from the acoustic instruments he grew up with. After signing to F Comm in 1997, he released a series of four EP's and worked with artists like Dubphonic, Ursula Rucker (who appears on his album and he produced a track for her debut), Nicole Graham, Mandel Turner and others. In addition he's done remix work for Richard Dorfmeister, the now defunct Nova Nova, Hector Zazou and the list keeps running on. While a lot of his work has dance roots, his debut was heavily influenced by film soundtracks and holds a deeply emotional and cinematic feel. As the F Communications label promotes its electronics without limits, Alexkid is an excellent leader of this approach. He clearly has no bounds to his work that would appeal to fans of Miles Davis, Jazzanova, Afro-Cuban music as well as hip-hop and deep house from both sides of the Atlantic.

Did your DJ appearances come about as a result of your artists/production work or have you been doing both for a good while? What kind of tracks do you play out?
I started DJing as a result of my productions a few years ago. I've been into machines for a while now and production is my main thing. The tracks of mine that I do play are "Sand Francisco" from my 2nd EP on F Com, I also play "Jazz course" from my 3rd EP, "Arboré" (Part 1 and 2), "Bienvenida" the original and the new remixes that Jori Hulkkonen and myself did, and "Strawberry lane". In my sets I like to mix up styles, I jump from deep house to disco, garage, or more percussive clubby afrobeat, to Californian house (Seasons, Joshua, Imperial Dub, Tweekin)

Tell us about your musical background and what you would describe as your key influences on Bienvenida.
I'm a Guitarist and I'm influenced by million things, a lot by travelling. I like to mix drum patterns from different cultures with as an example a "Tumbao" taken from the salsa, but played with a bass, just taking things here and there-I'm very influenced by movies and movie soundtracks...

Compared to a lot of other electronic acts, your sound crosses many genres and styles. Have listeners been receptive?
Pretty much for the moment! I listen to a lot of things, and I think an album only on a house tempo would be boring to me.

How did you select the musicians you worked with on your album?
They are all friends I know, and ones I've worked with already and appreciate their work or talent. Also people I met, occasions. I let the things happen and make them happen too.

I understand you did some work on Ursula Rucker's album as well? How did you two meet?
I asked King Britt a contact for her as I loved their collaborations, then I was in contact with Kelly, her manager, for a while, we were exchanging music, and we made it happen.

Your views on the French music scene?
Really cool things happening if we except the entire commercial stuff that is pretty bad. I love Versatile, Soha, Pepe Bradock, and a lot of others. A lot of good things are slowly coming out.

Could you tell us a little about your live performances?
For the moment not much...

Alex Kid's top bedroom tune?
The Album of Ursula Rucker on K7! BIG!

Could you tell us a little about what you're contributing to the work with Dubphonic, Nicole Graham, and Mandel Turner?
I still work with Dubphonic; something was written in a bio that I was an ex-member of Dub collective Dubphonic. Actually we're finishing an Album. Nicole and Mandel I worked with them on tracks of mine. Nicole went back to Miami now, so it's a little bit more complicated to work with her now.

When will you be in the U.S. again?
Enjoy the scene here? I love the US scene; a lot of my influences are from the east or west coasts but I don't have anything planned yet.