Infiné, easy music for the hard to please

Aymeric Westrich was barely 14 years, when he met Rami and his brother, Bachar Khalifé, at the conservatoire of Boulogne in France, where he studied Classical Percussions. Together with the two brothers, he went on tour around the globe with their father, Marcel Khalifé, the most respected Lebanese oud player.

Visiting Rami in NYC late 2000, he was introduced for the first time to Francesco Tristano, with whom Rami was already playing. The three boys started hanging around in the famous Downtown Manhattan Club “vinyl”, permeated with growing techno and house scene of the town. When Aymeric eventually left Paris to study at the Collective school of NYC, Rami and Francesco had already graduated at the Juilliard School. Whereas Rami and Francesco were fond of Minimal Techno and Contemporary Classic, Aymeric was mostly into East Coast Hip-Hop and French-style electro flavours.

Thus, back in Paris, not so surprisingly, Aymeric, starts collaborating with the rapper, Kery James, leading figure of the emerging conscious hip-hop scene in France. With strict guidelines, mostly based on live instrumentation and keyboard arrangements, he signed the productions of Kery’s album “Ma Vérité”.

Introduced by a common friend to Philippe Zdar, Aymeric joined Cassius as studio and live drummer. After a one-year tour with the band, he is still participating in the recent outtakes of the band and recently joined Phoenix for their French tour.

It´s not before 2005, under the request of the Sonar Festival programmers that Francesco put together officially for the first time the Aufgang project. Aymeric is the beat machine behind the two Grand Pianos, the plug infuriating the ivory twinkling melodies fuelling their first album and live performances with this distinctive and singular groove.   

Lately, Aymeric has also co-produced with his cousin (member of the funk-electro combo from Nantes, Smooth) a soundtrack for a short film and has finished an album with Bachar Khalifé to be released soon.