Palo Alto is a French group formed in Paris, France in 1989 by Jacques Barbéri, Denis Frajerman, Philippe Masson and Philippe Perreaudin. In their early interviews the group insisted on their musical filiation with Tuxedomoon, and on drawing their inspiration from Made to Measure, a Crammed Discs label. They would later make explicit their interest in bands such as Art Zoyd, The Legendary Pink Dots, Coil, The Residents, Can or Cabaret Voltaire. Science fiction in all its forms is a leitmotiv in the group’s work.

In 1990 Palo Alto released their cassette tape, Le clos, on the Italian label Old Europa Café. At the time their music was definitely written rather than improvised, consisting mainly of instrumentals with a stress on melody. Two years later, Extrême Ponction was released as a cassette on the T.T.I.C.C. Contingent label in France. This double CD collects those two tapes with the addition of Excroissance, another cassette release from 1993, this time as a cassette single. The whole material has been remastered by Norscq in 2024. Attention for physical copies: the labels for CDs 1 and 2 have been swapped by mistake.