Must be the music
It took me a long time to accept that I was, after all, a musician, and as I am preparing to enter a recording phase in late 2007 / 2008 I’m still not sure I am finally cool with it. I try my best though.
I never played any instruments (you play the studio ! Brian Eno would say, maybe), I grew up in a city with great music and surounded by an amazing record collection (from Kraftwerk to afghan radio recording to jazz), later I went to meet and connect with impossibly talented musicians (you know who you are), and my experiments with sounds led me to achieve a collection of songs, an album and now, maybe, I am actually a peer, and people introduce me as a musician and I give interviews and talk about my music.
Things could be worse, I know, people could actually write me as a DJ turned musician (I had to correct my friend Momus the last time he introduced me). I have never liked the term DJ (or maybe in a old school, radio way), and I have always been more interested in the way sounds are structured together than in sweaty dancefloors, despite the amazing and unexpected success my (non) DJing has been getting lately.
When I think music I think silence, and I actually think the greatest music I have ever achieved is silence. The goal is to master silence, the intervals, the way life breathes between beats or melodies.
I think in a way this difficult relationship with the term musician is related to the very idea of recording music again for the first time in a long, long time. Having difficulty to assume being a musician is a great way to hide the painful process of finding new sounds to records, sounds that make sense; when the formulas have been rediscovered again and abandoned because they belong to the past, where do you go ?
I also realized recently that, despite what I think about DJing (it’s easy, not challenging most of the time, it’s stupid, it’s actually like a good fast food restaurant; feels good right now and hopefully you won’t need to remember it the next day) I want to DJ, because no one else is DJing the way I do.
And this is of course connected to the question of being a musician because if I do music it’s getting hard to define precisely what kind of music I do. Polypunk, Juliana and Beat vacation are completely different, but still very Digiki. Pop / folk / art, where is the balance ?
Anyway, a somewhat long post to come to this simple conclusion: I don’t know for sure if I am a musician, but I want to do music again. And no, it’s not going to be easy and it is going to hurt a lot, and I have no idea where I am going. Excited ? I… am.
September 16th, 2007 at 10:21 am
So am I !
September 17th, 2007 at 7:14 am
You may not know whether you’re a musician, but one thing’s certain, from the early mixcds you were giving away to your albums, and all the mixes and remixes I’ve yet to listen to, from the music you’re selecting to the music you’re producing (both meanings), you certainly do have your own sound, your own universe, this ‘je-ne-sais-quoi’ which makes a piece of music easily recognisable. You’re so Digiki! There are ‘brainless’ studio musicians, but yes, you’re a smart musician who plays the studio!
(now get to work! or to play!)
September 17th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
you might one of be those, you know, architect’s architect, filmmaker’s filmmaker, fashion designer’s designer etc. not necessarily huge with the crowds but highly respected with the practitioners in the field. but then that’s probably pretty much the only way to be these days.
September 18th, 2007 at 3:43 am
“sounds that make sense”
best formula of the year.
si le son fait sens, cela veut dire musique, non?
gilles