Electro star Zdar of French Cassius duo dies in window fall

French electro star and producer Philippe Cerboneschi, better known as Zdar, of the electro duo Cassius, has died after falling from a window in Paris, his agent said. He was 50.

Sleeve of the Ibifornia album by Cassius DR

"He suffered an accidental fall, from the window of a high floor of a Paris building," said Sebastien Farran of the incident which occurred on Wednesday evening.

Cerboneschi formed Cassius in 1996 with Hubert Blanc-Francard, or 'Boom Bass'.

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The duo became a staple of the French electronic scene with their first album "1999" released the same year and mixing hip hop, house and funk.

They had met a few years earlier when Zdar was already working as a sound engineer for artists such as Serge Gainsbourg and was part of the Motorbass duo with Etienne de Crecy.

Three other Cassius studio albums followed, "Au reve" in 2002, "15 Again" which marked a turn towards rock in 2006 with the single "Toop Toop" and "Ibifornia" in 2016.

A pioneer of the so-called 'French touch' house music craze, he also collaborated extensively with other artists such as the Beastie Boys, Phoenix, The Rapture, Cat Power, Chromeo, Tiga, M and Franz Ferdinand.