Tahiti 80

Tahiti 80
Tahiti 80 Live in One World Party, Bangkok 2009
Background information
Origin	Rouen France
Genres	French pop, indie pop, downtempo, synthpop, indie rock
Years active	1992-present
Labels	Human Sounds The Militia Group (US) Atmosphériques (France) Island/Universal (international)
Members	Xavier Boyer Médéric Gontier Sylvain Marchand Pedro Resende Raphaël Léger Hadrien Grange
Past members	Julien Barbagallo

Tahiti 80 are a French indie pop band from Rouen. The group was founded in 1999 by Xavier Boyer, Pedro Resende, Médéric Gontier and Sylvain Marchand.

Singer and guitarist Boyer and bassist Resende formed the pop combo as students at the University of Rouen, sharing an affinity for indie music, new wave and sixties pop. Taking their name from a souvenir t-shirt given to Boyer's father in 1980, the duo recruited guitarist Mederic Gontier, and with the addition of drummer Sylvain Marchand a year later, the lineup was complete. The foursome released a self-produced and self-financed EP, "20 Minutes" (Bobby Records 1996) which resulted in them signing a deal with French label Atmospheriques.

In 1998, the band flew to NYC to record their first album Puzzle with Andy Chase. Featuring contributions from Eric Matthews and Adam Schlesinger, "Puzzle" was mixed in Sweden with Tore Johansson. The record, released between the end of 1999 & early 2000 received much praise from the press (band of the week in Melody Maker in Spring 1999), and saw the band touring the world to promote it. Puzzle received a gold certification from the RIAJ in December 2000. Of all the singles taken from the album, "Heartbeat" was the most successful. Tahiti 80's US label, Minty Fresh, released a mini LP called Extra Pieces, which included B-sides, remixes & other rarities.

In 2001, the band re-united with Andy Chase to record a more experimental follow up album Wallpaper for the Soul. The sessions took place in Rouen, NYC, Etretat, London & Portland (Oregon). Collaborators on this effort include mixer Tony Lash and Let It Be arranger Richard Hewson. Wallpaper for the Soul was released in 2002, garnered good reviews (it was selected as one of Uncut's top 10 albums of the year) and was followed by another mini album "A piece of Sunshine" made up of out-takes from the prolific album sessions.

Following that, Xavier Boyer selected songs for a compilation called "A Piece of Gold" on behalf of the band. Featuring various artists such as Todd Rundgren, The Small Faces, Donald Byrd....) it was only released in Japan for copyright reasons.

For their third album, from 2003–2004, Tahiti 80 spent several months at their own recording studio, the Tahitilab. The way of working was different this time: as opposed to Puzzle & Wallpaper for the Soul, the songs were mostly improvised and written in the studio. The soul journey which began on songs like "Heartbeat" and "1,000 Times" matured on Fosbury. They collaborated with Neal Pogue (co-production & mix) and Serban Ghenea (mix), respectively Outkast's and NERD's sound engineers, with British singer Linda Lewis duetting on "Your Love Shines". "Better Days Will Come" was featured in the first episode of the fourth season of Smallville (an American television series) in September, 2004.