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Part 2

Could you take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work? Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?

I'm a proud bedroom producer. My composition setup is in my room. I wake up in the morning, try to make some music but it often fails because I'm more of a night producer. So I watch some Hey Arnold or Sabrina the Teenage Witch and go back at it in the afternoon.

I love to have some visual activity on the side like these old TV shows. I'm not sure why it influences and motivates me but I suppose nostalgia mixed with some sort of cheesiness is responsible for this. It's really hard to summarise my routine since it often changes. I could produce a track all night long after a night out, sleep 4 hours and go straight back to it or I could go a full week without creating anything. One thing that I'm sure of is that I'm constantly on the lookout for new technologies and I always take like 2 hours or so to try some new stuff out, even without having a concrete result.

My personal life is all about music also. I make music with friends, go out to concerts, collaborate on music projects, build new controllers ... I suppose this could be a bad thing, but I'm happy so it's all ok :)

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece or album that's particularly dear to you, please? Where did the ideas come from, how were they transformed in your mind, what did you start with and how do you refine these beginnings into the finished work of art?

I just released a track called “Ché Pas” (which means «I dunno») on Global Warming Records. This track is a quite literal version of my state of mind during the recording of my voice. I first recorded my voice saying « I dunno what I'm doing with my voice and I dunno why I'm doing this ». At that moment, the idea was to test/experiment with some effects on my voice, whatever the content of my speech was. So, I stacked many effects such as the Izotope Nectar, Antares's Auto-Tune ... It sounded ok but I thought it would be cool to put a beat behind it to make a track. So I time-stretched the voices to fit the grid and designed some breakbeat/jungle drums. The track's foundation was created!

Since it was just a simple draft, I left it for a few months. After listening back to it later on, I realised that I should keep the lyrics as they were and finish the track. I really wanted to be honest and spontaneous in the creation process. This is the moment I wanted to go a bit further and randomise the effects that were applied to the voice. For this, I used a controller I built called the « Père Fouras 3000 », which looks like this:



The idea here was to activate and deactivate the voice FXs using those joysticks (going one direction would activate FX1, going the other way = FX2, etc ...). So, I recorded the automation of this rather random performance in Ableton. This is how I did the main voices.

I could go on for ages talking about production details. In conclusion, I would say that technique was once again the root of this track and that my state of mind during the creation process was focused on spontaneity and honesty.

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?

It's a funny thing to say but speed is often what gets me deep into the creation process. Going fast to put down ideas is a key for me to stay in the zone.

I realised this after many years and kept this “skill” up to level by doing some sort of “against the clocks” with friends. The idea is to take 10 min to start a track and then switch computers with my mates, continue their tracks then switch again 10minutes later etc. It really enhances your adaptation skills and “straight to the point” mentality. In my mind,

I separate the creation process from the production/mixing. I know I'll come back on elements later on to get the EQ right for instance and that could then unblock some element that I didn't see, leading to new ideas, etc ... That process is a lot slower and I can do it under diverse conditions.

Oh and night outs drinking would definitely be a distraction in the creation and production process. I suppose as they'd be for everyone ...

How is playing live and writing music in the studio connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally? How do you see the relationship between improvisation and composition in this regard?

I always think about the way I'm going to play music I compose in the studio. This work is something like 20% artistic and 80% technical. The idea is to figure out what elements to play, how to play them and with what controller, knowing that it has to take a minimum of CPU. So the link between studio and live is a complicated and long process. Other than that, the live performance is very much different from the studio creativity because of the spontaneous and improvisational dimension. I allow myself a lot of freedom in the reinterpretations of my tracks. This would be the main difference I feel between my vision of studio and live.

How do you see the relationship between the 'sound' aspects of music and the 'composition' aspects? How do you work with sound and timbre to meet certain production ideas and in which way can certain sounds already take on compositional qualities?

I see “sound” as paint and composition as the image you want to paint. You can't draw something without colours.

I'm not really into painting but I can imagine contrast is key to achieving certain moods/emotions/figures. It's the same for music. Knowing your sounds and the science behind them as well as using them in the right way helps you reach the production you want to draw.

One thing I learned in Dublin is the difference between pitched and unpitched sounds in terms of frequencies and their ratio. Pitched sounds are a set of frequencies that are linked by an integral ratio whereas unpitched sounds have frequencies that are linked by decimal ratios. Therefore knowing this, it is easier to use the full range of frequencies, consequently making better use of contrast, hence more impact on the listener.

I think we could do full essays on this subject, so I'll stop now 8-) Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses.

From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

Wow that's another really interesting question.

Maybe you were pointing towards synaesthesia? I don't know much about this but it's definitely an interesting field. From my own experience, I would say that music has a huge impact on my memory. I'm sure I'm not the only one. We all know where we were and what we were doing when we first listened to this particular song. 2000's pop/rock/electronic music has this feeling on me, it brings nostalgia from when I was a teenager. The impact is so deep in me that it's unconsciously a huge influence on my music but also on other aspects of my life.

Another obvious link between music and senses is visual. Some can visualise an environment pretty easily while listening to some piece of music. In my case, all visual representations that I may have during a listening session are linked to memories. It might be some place that I've been to or settings that I know of, like for instance the Moria Caves in the Lord of The Rings. Being a big fan of the books, movies and music, I like to imagine some music I compose in settings from the movie.

For instance, I imagined my track called “Drastic” being the soundtrack of Gandalf's battle with a Balrog in the Moria Caves. Try it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJZZNHekEQw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Locj3VkiMBk
I might be the only one seeing this link but sure, doesn't matter.

Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

That's a tough question. I remember being asked this last year and I came to the conclusion after rethinking about it that anything can be art as long as at least 2 people say its art. In that direction, anything can be art really. For example, I really think postmen are artists in the way that they create expectations and often bring you a surprise. ¯\_(ツ )_/¯

It is remarkable, in a way, that we have arrived in the 21st century with the basic concept of music still intact. Do you have a vision of music, an idea of what music could be beyond its current form?

Ouai.


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