Oracle Rouge 28 April 2017
Slo, thanks for taking your time to talk to Slickster Magazine. How is the health of the EDM music scene in France?
Thanks to you man, well I think the French electro scene is still one of the best worldwide, one of the few things we can do good apparently… Especially since synthwave and cyberpunk has emerged as Kavinsky, Carpenter Brut, Perturbator and Fixions are French also. We got a lot of other talented bands and labels here, such as Volkor X, Hypercan, and many others. But what I can see now is a worldwide interest for the synth scene. When I started Fixions in 2012, there were already great projects but the public were pretty confidential.
We have interviewed many synthwave musicians from around the world. It truly seems that this rising musical genre is spreading around the world and is not constrained by any physical boundaries. How can you explain this global phenomenon?
Well I think the human evolution stopped in 2000, and since that year we are just moving backwards. So we are now nearly 15 years after 2000, that means 2000 less 15, that means we are back in 1985. In the next decade, everyone will take LSD, pills, and will listen to progressive folk bands with flutes. Ok seriously, I think we are nostalgic of an era we don’t really knew, I mean I’m born in the early 80s and I can speak about my mom dressings or the stories I heard in school, the stuff I’ve seen on TV, the toys I had and those I wanted… But people like my parents, who were adults in that era, only them really knew this period. So we are nostalgic about fictions and cool stuff we grew with, but it’s a very ‘romantic’ vision of this past, even when it’s about killing machines or dystopic futures.
So synthwave, and cyberpunk scenes are not only a stupid revival, it’s a real reinterpretation of the past, a very extreme reinterpretation by the way, cause we have very modern tools to play with now.
We’re living in a kind of alternate reality, designed by retrofuture fictions created in the 80s and 90s. This is not the real present, this is the future we wanted to live in when we were kids.
Your music is very densely layered, but still clear and precise. Is this by design? How did you develop your sound?
Yes man, I like it wide and I like it wild. I’m just trying to produce the music I’d like to hear, I’m doing and listening to synthwave stuff for years and I can feel a little redundancy in the scene now. Since I started music, I always tried to create the more personal stuff I can. And not only for myself, as I’m always thinking about emotions and reactions listeners will be able to feel listening to my work. So I always take a lot of time and recoil to work on every single second I produce. I got no rules except for that one: I need it to have a soul, a ghost in the shell.
Do you have any upcoming live shows or projects that will incorporate video with your music?
I did some gigs before but as a former metalhead I’m not very comfortable yet with that ‘mixing alone on stage behind a computer’ concept. Need to work on it for to offer a more specific experience to my audience for the next shows to come. Last year, when I opened for Carpenter Brut, I used a video projection with a lot of Japanese cyberpunk anime, very weird and gore stuff, like some Otomo works, Cybercity Oedo 808, Wicked City, Gunnm footages… People apparently liked it.
And for some weeks now I’m working with David Placer, a very talented video maker. He’s doing an official video clip for ‘Crimeware’, the opening song from ‘Genocity’. The video is now 99% done and should be released in the next weeks. Wait for something astonishing guys, killer retro 3D animations, creepy cyberpunk aura, I can’t wait to share it !
What is the process that you use to select the audio soundbites for your music?
I need to be in a very specific state, where I’m feeling connected with the emptiness itself, and then I tried billions of combinations until I get 99% satisfied. The 100% satisfied state is impossible. Still no rules, I can use electric guitars, vocals, keyboards, vst… Just need that ghost in the shell magic.
Is there anything you would like to promote?
Two things, my last album ‘Genocity’ is available on bandcamp and streaming services since April, and I really think it’s killer. I tried to blend science fiction and synthwave with cyberpunk, a modern powerful production, and if you want to trip far away you should give it a try.
I also just released a tribute to the Commodore Amiga years cause I can’t get out of my mind legendary video game scores such as Dune, Turrican or Unreal. It’s now n°2 on bandcamp worldwide charts, including covers from Master Boot Record, Volkor X, Fixions and many others, and it’s available for free here: http://projectpaula.bandcamp.com
Please list your social media sites.
http://fixions.bandcamp.com
http://www.facebook.com/laserfixion