interview_003 - Ektoplast
What leads you to compose music ? / Why do you compose music ?
Music and the desire to create constantly inhabits me. I conceive composition as a kind of lifelong quest whose ultimate goal is actually quite vague, although it sometimes seems to me to be a simple personal quest. In any case, it is this goal that constantly pushes me to move forward, whereas it is the path I find myself on that makes it its richness. Each track is then in reality only one step in this infinite process. Each step allows me to keep trying new ideas, and to let new perspectives appear on the horizon. I then like to take a step back, analyze this sinuous road and thinking about the creative process. So the composition does offer me both a ground for reflection and experimentation, but it also leaves me space for something more intuitive, which speaks directly to my affect.
What are your sources of inspiration ? / What can be a source of inspiration?
I enjoy looking at the world for inspiration, animated by this endless desire. Everything can be a source of inspiration… Nature, a discussion or a meeting, a dream, a painting by a futuristic artist, a psychoacoustic or psychotropic experience, an ethnomusicology course on Indonesian music, a Bach fugue, a song by Radiohead, or an amazing track discovered one summer morning during a festival, etc… Marvelling at what surrounds us as if we were discovering it for the first time is the key.I like to use sound recordings in my compositions, considering them as acoustics events and sound material obviously, but also as memories. Behind these sound fragments are actually hidden countless memories that I bring with me… of a determined moment, a place, a person, an event, a sensation, etc. These intimate memories are for sure not perceptible when listening to the tracks, however, they are there, and are part of their identity. I find this way of seeing the captured sounds exhilarating… Isn’t it poetic to imagine combining these memories by making a kind of sound collage? Or even to capture and take back with you sound traces of a place before it disappears forever: an acoustic imprint captured for eternity.
Can you tell us something about your creative process ?
I should speak about the track Vision as exemple because iIt’s Interesting to see the original idea of this track as well as its development. One of my desires in this composition was to work with vinyl as an inspiration. Although the sound of the piano in this piece comes from recordings, these two languorous chords that repeat over and over again remind more the idea of sampling a vinyl by capturing a sound fragment and using it as a basic loop. Also in a short passage I used a
recording of a vinyl for its warm grain, using the last seconds of a vinyl composed only of a noisy silence. From this grainy vinyl sound came then two ideas. On the one hand to accentuate the sounds of the piano’s mechanical proximity: key, pedal, seat, etc… These sounds are also microscopic and thus create an interesting parallel with those of vinyl. On the other hand, the idea of turning something a priori undesirable like the grain sound of a vinyl (although now seen more as pleasant and warm) into something musical and enjoyable. That is why I wanted to imitate the sound of my tinnitus by using pure fm synthesis sounds.
How would you describe your music?
I would say it’s a slow music, to take your time, on the border between living room music and dance floor music. Also, unconsciously, I think my music has something melancolic. It’s a rather dark music but sometimes areas of light appear, as if one suddenly takes one’s head out of the water or the surface of the earth, before plunging back in again.
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