Name: Ogives
Members: Marie Billy (vocals, keyboards), Zoé Pireaux (vocals, flute), Tom Malmendier (drums, percussion), Pavel Tchikov (guitar, synthesizers, vocals, lyrics), Martin Chenel (saxophones, vocals), Alexis Van Doosselaere (drums, percussion, lyrics), Charlie Maerevoet (saxophones, keyboards, vocals), Manu Henrion (guitar, trombone, vocals)
Interviewee: Pavel Tchikov
Nationality: Russian
Current release: Ogives's debut LP La Mémoire des Orages is out via Sub Rosa.
Recommendation: Book: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak. One of the most melancholic work I've ever read. Melancholy is a very important feeling for me, I think of it as a path to the essential elements of the inner being.
Music: Living Torch by Kali Malone. This work arouses in me a quite similar impression as religious music.

If you enjoyed this Ogives interview and would like to stay up to date with the band and their music, visit them on Instagram, and bandcamp.



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I experience two different ways of listening to music. The first one is  “subjective”, we could say closed-eyes listening. It's the less prevalent, and I don't have any control on the moment it happens.

However, sometimes the magic takes place, the brain turns off, and opens the door to a sort of grace. There you feel connected to the something that exceeds the contours of your own being, bigger and more important, with the feeling that all the elements seem at their right place, then your own existence looks like a part of those elements, and everything makes sense. Those moments are very rare, but they have always given direction to my life since my late childhood.

The second one is  “objective”, open-eyes listening. It's part of my learning as well as of the creative process. It's about analysing and understanding the forms, the organisation of timbres, the management of the time factor, etc. from a more “professional” perspective. Those also provide a sense of joy, in an intellectual way of learning and understanding.

What were your very first steps in music like - and how do you rate gains made through experience versus the naiveté of those first steps?

I clearly remember the first time I heard music, in an emotional way. I was 5 years old, and I was woken up by distorted guitars and sharp vocals. My father was playing an album by the Russian rock band “DDT” pretty loud.



The debut song first appeared in my dream, like an illumination, then pulled me out from sleep to consciousness where I realised that the light was music, and that it was the most important thing I had experienced so far at that time. From that moment I switched from hearing music to listening to it, and there started to be music in my head all the time.

Then I discovered the diversity in music, and it was the golden age of my “subjective” listening linked with those transcendent feelings I tried  to describe above. Along the years this experience became sparser. Thinking became more prominent than feeling.

Naivety eased the experience during  my childhood. Then my adult brain inhibited it and drew borders that I now have to outstrip with lots of efforts to shift from thinking to experience the music, which is in my opinion a quite natural evolution through the ages.

The memory of childhood's emotions brings along a feeling of melancholy, which is an essential key for the (re)connexion with that energy.

According to scientific studies, we make our deepest and most incisive musical experiences between the ages of 13-16. What did music meant to you at that age and what’s changed since then?

It's a crucial period. However I think it started earlier in my case. At that age we're very fragile and thereby heavily affected by the infinity of emotions and energies that we usually can't figure out or manage, and in some cases even survive. It's also the moment where we become aware of our individuality.

In my life, music was the medium that helped me to connect with my own inner being, find a position in the world I was evolving in. It opened paths for the emotions that I was unable to express, helped me to be self-confident in my loneliness.

And since then it has still been the same in some way.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools and how have they shaped your perspective on music?

My main instrument is the guitar. It's the instrument I wanted to play when I was a child, and it's the instrument that I still practise on a regular basis. However the discovery of synthesisers, and especially the modular synthesiser, was a response to my very early desire to go beyond the guitar timbre possibilities.

First I started to explore the possibilities of pedals, as well as extended and classical playing techniques. But my eurorack modular system really opened a new sonic universe and brought a large flexibility with lots of synthesis methods not well covered in the pedal world (granular synthesis, loop manipulation, resonators, comparators, envelope followers, etc). The modular system allows me to realise an idea within the tool rather than find ideas from the tool.

The modular became my Swiss-army knife. I use it all the time, in live or production situations, from a classic echo sound for the guitar to controlling and live processing instruments and managing multichannel distribution.

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and what motivates you to create?

I share Andrei Tarkovsky's idea that true artistic activity should be a carrier of catharsis. Thinking that human beings are sane, that we are the most evolved creatures having ourselves and even the world under control is wrong.

A brief look at the state of the world is enough to highlight that mankind is sick and still far away from what we could call “civilised”. Our minds are still governed by archaic gods, and primitive drives that devastate everything, from our small personal matters to global insanity. That's why we need catharsis.

Art offers the possibility to love Beauty. And “Beauty will save the world” (Dostoevsky).

Paul Simon said “the way that I listen to my own records is not for the chords or the lyrics - my first impression is of the overall sound.” What's your own take on that and how would you define your personal sound?

I usually can't listen to my music any more once it's produced. In general the process in quite long, and once finished I'm already into new ideas and conceptions.

However, there's one moment that I really enjoy and that helps me keeping connexion and believe in the music even once I can't listen to it any more. That moment is when during the working process the global shape of the work emerges as I'm forging the raw ideas. That moment when chaos bears the form.

So this is not even about listening to sounds in themselves, but perceiving the essence of the upcoming work for the first time. At those moments I usually experience what I called above the “subjective” listening. Then comes the long surgical part of the work.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds? In how far would you describe them as “musical”?

As far as I remember I have never really been moved by sounds in their natural form. At least not as deeply as by sight. For instance the view of the ocean arouses much more emotions in me than the sound of its waves.

However, I'm in love with organised natural sounds. I listen to Musique Concrète pioneers, field- recordings, etc. For my ears natural sounds are a good raw material for artistic purposes but don't arouse on their own any emotional activity in me.

From very deep/high/loud/quiet sounds to very long/short/simple/complex compositions - are there extremes in music you feel drawn to and what response do they elicit?

Silence – one edge of the extreme – is the prerequisite for a musical sound to take place. It's the mould of  music. And also an important musical material. But very fragile. You have to sculpt the sonic space carefully to be able to use silence as a sonic material.

Noise – the other edge – is the richest and most complex sounds we could meet. While deeply listening to noise, one can distinguish lots of timbres. Noise, or noises are also very strong raw musical materials.

Between both edges there's a large palette of possibilities and variations. All of those are infinite sound objects a musician can pick up and organise into a musical creation. I'm fascinated by that multiplicity, it pushes me forward to explore that universe of sounds and keep creating.

From symphonies and traditional verse/chorus-songs to linear techno tracks and free jazz, there are myriads ways to structure a piece of music. Which approaches work best for you – and why?

I don't have any strong idea on a musical form. For me the most important thing is the emotional content. How a piece of music can connect you with that intuition of “Beauty” ( Dostoevsky‘s idea). And it can happen with a 2-min song, as well as with a 2-hour symphony.

However in my personal work, structures tend to expand. I usually end up with long and quite complex structures, with lots of different parts and contrasts, with non-repeating evolutions.

But I'd also love to be able to create a 2-minute song one day, one that I could be happy with.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of one of your pieces, live performances or albums that's particularly dear to you, please?

My creative process may vary a lot depending on the work I'm doing. For instance for the OGIVES album, almost everything started with the lyrics. Once the poetical images were established, I looked for the rhythm in the syllables, then the melody, then the counterpoints. I focussed on the melodic and harmonic interweavings. As the process went on, the needs in instrumentation appeared on their own.

Then came the experimental part of the arrangement. “What if I replace this cello part with a synth ? What if I replace that synth noise with percussions ? What if I heavily process that vocal drone so that it'll seem more like a synth pad than a vocal part ?” Etc.

While listening or imagining different pieces one after the other, the global shape of the album appeared. It then introduced the macro time factor and new ideas and hence involved new decisions. “That song is too long and boring, it should be divided in two separate pieces, it could give me enough headroom to develop the ideas, and work on a sense of symmetry”.

I always approach making or listening to an album or a live performance from a global time perspective. And I really enjoy it when  the sense of harmony on that level is noticeable.

Sometimes, science and art converge in unexpected ways. Do you conduct “experiments” or make use of scientific insights when you're making music?

I'm not good at science at all. But as an electronic musician I'm often in contact with it.

I built part of my modular system on my own. I'm currently working on a project with motor-driven instruments. I've also built some ribbon microphones, plate-reverbs, etc. So I had to take in some scientific notions. But it's really not natural for me, and I'm not really interested in those unless they can help me to achieve a musical purpose.

Also in my solo modular works, I often use mathematical concepts of probabilities to set frames for randomness, which is a significant concept in the modular world. I could say that most of the time I play a duet with  randomness. So you have to learn its contours. And those can be drawn by mathematical concepts.



Anyway, in my case, science and music don't work together fluidly. For me science is an intellectual thing, and I always try hard to think as little as possible when playing music.

How does the way you make music reflect the way you live your life? Can we learn lessons about life by understanding music on a deeper level?

Both are extremely interconnected. From the fact that I have to feel fit not only for practising my instruments and being able to play my music, but also to be vigilant enough to catch the ideas from their conceptual birth to their formal realisation.

My spiritual health is also very connected to my way of making music. Working on my own, understanding my inner being, feeling connected to the mystery, being aware of the limits of my being in front of the vastness, meditating on death, all this leads me where I find the ideas that eventually become music.

Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Very, very different for me. Making music requires from me lots of effort, and often induces a sense of discomfort. From the effort needed to find a new idea, to the long periods of working on it without making lazy decisions while staying honest to myself, the path is harsh.

And then again from the discipline needed for practising the instruments and composing the music, to the stress before the live shows, the inner doubts, depressions, etc., the path is still harsh. It's really much more about fighting my own laziness, fears and demons, about getting over the unpleasant situations and feelings to bring a musical idea into life.

And still lots of things have to be done after that, from production to promotion ... All this represents loads of work. So for me it's definitely not the same as enjoying a great cup of coffee.

Every time I listen to "Albedo 0.39" by Vangelis, I choke up. But the lyrics are made up of nothing but numbers and values. Do you, too, have a song or piece of music that affects you in a way that you can't explain?

I would say I have the same thing with Eastern religious music. I used to listen a lot to mediaeval music, from Old Roman monodies and Byzantine chants to the music of contemporary composers, such as Arvo Pärt.

I don't understand anything in Latin, and I'm not really familiar with Biblical stories and images. But it moves me very deeply, it connects me with things in a way I can't explain yet.

If you could make a wish for the future – what are developments in music you would like to see and hear?

I would say that I would like to see more people making music (and arts in general), which would not be really good for our careers (as musicians), because more artists would make things even more difficult. Yet I think arts may really help humanity to heal, teaching us to love Beauty.