Quite unspectacular I got
to know about SINUSOÏDE, a dark electro
project by Julien Pichard. Since his music reminds me a lot of
legendary Slowdive I wanted to know more about him, his beginning,
his musical ambitions and the French scene he is ranging in. I
got some surprising answers, especially in matter of future prospects
musical wise … ;)
Dajana: What let you make
the step from creating music for short films and videos to a musician
and singer, recording your first solo album?
Julien: Last year I finally had the time to record an
album, and since I had to push back this desire for a few years
I now decided to jump on this opportunity.
Dajana: What kind of films
and videos have that been? Sport films? Nature?
Julien: That have been fiction short-movies, communication
movies, experimental ones too.
Dajana: You are around
since 1990, why you did not start earlier with a band or solo
project ?
Julien: I used to make songs between 1995 and 1997, I
was in a college and I made a 15 songs demo, but I’ve stopped
when I started to work. Besides, I was 15 years old in 1990 and
there was not so much interesting to say.
Dajana: As composer you
are known under the moniker Dou. Why did you change the name for
this solo project, but still mixing in the name on the track list?
Where is the difference between Dou and SINUSOÏDE?
Julien: SINUSOÏDE is the name under
which I was making music back in college, I changed it for Dou
when I stopped making dark music for a more electro sound under
the name of Dou. In fact Dou was a animation video and music project
created by me and Lubnaroum. So I took back the name of SINUSOÏDE
when I decided to make songs again. The name Dou on the mp3 tags
is an error due to automatic mp3 tags on the web server.
Dajana: What meaning has
the sine curve to your music? What fascinates you on this curve?
Julien: I guess it’s simply the up and down psychological
meaning of the sine curve. But there are also a lot of ways to
see it, some meanings are more physiological than electrical.
Dajana: Was it difficult
to create this music since the “audience” is now completely
different?
Julien: I don’t really care about the audience.
You like my music or not. You know I am in the movie production
there I have to care about the audience. For my music it is just
the demand to create music that is important. So it was not very
difficult, I think that people don’t really change, there
will always be love, epic, depressed or humorous songs, the style
change but not the purpose.
Dajana: You have some
jazzy piano dominated influences. Where does it come from? Can
you imagine to do a Jazz album one day?
Julien: I’ve always listen to jazz music. There
are only 2 songs with the piano: Le navire and Stase. Stase is
the only one with real jazzy influences, it’s not that I
want to turn into jazz but I think that the meaning of this song
was to say I will go into another way on my next work and that
I’ve turn a page with old obsessions that I put on this
LP. I guess this song is a bit nostalgic and opens the gate to
a new direction.
Dajana: What inspires
you generally?
Julien: My feelings, things that I had to pull out of
my mind before it became to surrounding and oppressive.
Dajana: How many of the
used instruments are real or synthetically created? Did you play
the real ones all by yourself?
Julien: The guitars and the bass were real instruments.
I used midi instruments for the piano, the synths and the drums.
I played all the real one by myself with the piano too using a
midi keyboard.
I made no loops with the real instruments and keyboards. The old
songs I made under SINUSOÏDE were recorded
on a 4 track tape, I used the same method for recordings of 2004,
using the computer as a tape recorder to sound more real, more
rock.
Dajana: The song Garccss
was done together with Lubnaroum. Who came up with the idea and
why? Is that a collaboration you would like continue in the future?
Julien: Both of us wanted to do a song together. Lubna
came to me with the original idea. It was fun to record this but
I don’t know when we could do another song as we both have
a big schedule. But we still work together on other stuffs.
Dajana: With whom you
would like to work together, as far as you get the chance?
Julien: I guess with Bertrand Burgalat, a French singer
and composer.
Dajana: Did you ever play
live? If yes, how did it turned out? If not, where and in what
surrounding you would like to play live?
Julien: I played live one time back to my old college
demo, it was not very good but fun. I don’t think I will
play live, I don’t have the time now, but I can’t
say I’ll never do it.
Dajana: What to expect
in the future musical wise? How, you think, will your music change?
In what direction? What influences you would like to add, which
one you would like to cut next time?
Julien: I think I will go into a more electronic direction,
in fact I was about to make an electro industrial LP when I made
2004 and all that was coming sounded
rock. So maybe next time it will be something completely different.
But soul/funk/disco music have some huge influences on me, I’d
like to add them to my next work. I guess we’ll see.
Dajana: Since having experiences
to set visualizations into music, can you imagine to visualize
the music of SINUSOÏDE? In what way could that happen?
Julien: There is some video work that I plan to do with
people I use to work with. Like Xavier Ameller who is making videos
for VonMagnet. You could see some of our experimental video on
http://www.transkom.tv
but I’m changing the video servers so there are some connection
problems.
Dajana: What about a “real”
homepage for the first step? ;)
Julien: I begin to change the website, I bought sinusoide.com
and move the site to a real webserver.
Dajana: How to assess
the scene in France you are ranging in? Who are the big ones?
How difficult is it to establish and to develop yourself, to stand
the ground?
Julien: I don’t know the dark scene very well in
France, I know one or two songs by Trisomis 21, an old band. I
think France is not a country where dark music could ever expand
itself. By the way, except Bertrand Burgalat and his work on his
label Tricatel or Air, I’m not passionate by French music
in general.
Dajana: What’s your
idols musical wise and which artist/album had a bigger impact
on you lately?
Julien: I quote in a random way: David Bowie with “Outside”,
NIN with “The Fragile”, Devics with “My Beautiful
Sinking Ship”, Gary Numan with “The pleasure Principal”,
Prince with “Around the world in a day, Christian Death
with “Iconologia”, Björk with "Vespertine",
Earth Wind & Fire with “Last Days and Time” and
“That’s the way of the World”, Das Ich “Feuer”,
Deltron 3030…
These are the albums that had a bigger impact on me lately, but
there are so much more.
Dajana: Ok, I think that
are enough questions for now. I would like to thank you for taking
time in answering these questions. If there is still anything
that our readers should know … the last words are yours
:)
Julien: Thank to you Dajana to care about my LP. And
to the readers: don’t hesitate to download the mp3 and to
share them… and leave a few word by mail.
I almost forgot there is a “hidden” page on SINUSOÏDE
website not very difficult to find on which you could find mp3
bonus... |
