With the star of French electro continuing to rise, anything French seems to be getting fervent attention by any blogger who dug Waters Of Nazareth. But amongst all of the superstars of the scene (the Mehdi's, the SebastiAn's and the Justice's) a bunch of bands are making major waves and are just as worthy of your devotion. I'm speaking of course of the bands involved in the Valérie scene, Maethelvin, Anoraak, College and my pick of the bunch, the Outrunners. The band have been mesmerising me for the last couple of months with their sweeping retro tunes, all of which have that distinctively '80s vibe. It's kind of like hopping into the Delorean to go back to 1982 to watch a bunch of bad-ass cop shows. So, in short, it's great.From the first glimpse of the group's (made up of Pierre de la Touche and Stephen Falken) output, I'm seriously impressed. So much so that I felt compelled to track Pierre and Stephen down for a brief chat. Persistence pays off and the boys were kind enough to spill the beans on the bliss that is the Outrunners. Read on.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dave: First of all, one can see it in the name, The Outrunners,surely that is a reference to the old Sega game, right?! So would you say that you guys are heavily influenced by video games? The music of video games as well as the aesthetics of them? If that's the case, do you ever play games to the soundtrack of your own music?
Stephen Falken: More than the game in itself, we were influenced by the general mood of Turbo Outrun and the name sounds good. Video games like all subcultures of that time influenced us. Once a year i like to play on my NeoGeo.
Pierre de la Touche: As Stephen said, this is much more a tribute to Video Games of that time than a tribute precisely to this game. When I was a young kid I was able to stay hours looking my brother (who is 8 years older than me) playing with his Sinclair Spectrum and, later, his Amstrad.
Dave: I guess this is a sort of a follow on from the first question, but what influences your guys tastes and movements as musicians? Whenever I listen to Blazing Speed And Neon Lights With You I for some reason think Blade Runner and the Vangelis score. It's never as groovy as Blazing Speed but i think it's just something about the atmosphere present in both.
Stephen Falken: From Vangelis to Patrick Cowley and so many pioneers of synthesiser music to be named …. Blade Runner is my favourite movie and the outrunners are heavily influenced by Cyberpunk culture. For more modern influences i can mention Alan Braxe & Fred Falke, Lifelike or Maethelvin.
Pierre de la Touche: Maybe are we making music for a movie that doesn’t exists ;). From Michael Mann, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott to Lifelike, Vince Di Cola, College and Jan Hammer. I think that we are equally influenced by movie makers and musicians...
Dave: Since you guys are relatively new to the scene I can't really find a bio on you guys, could you give me a little band history? What was it that brought you two guys together to start making music? Do you guys share the same ideas about making music?
Stephen Falken: Before meeting PDLT I was making unreleased new age music with my synthesizers, my brain has been formatted I cant remember anything before that period. Pierre and I share the same love for synthesizer epic et blazing melodies so we decided to unite our forces.
Pierre de la Touche (with Norman : I started to play as as techno/electro dj 10 years ago. I am very influenced by the late 90s ‘french touch’ using (and abusing!) looped funky sample and low pass filters so I started to make that kind of music in 2005 and released some vinyls since. I also worked with College the same year. Since 2006, I’m also a member of The Freshmakers( with Doray and Arno Cost). As Stephen said, we decided to make music together when we discovered that we were all together very influenced by the same artists, epic sounds and graphical universes. And yes, we share exactly the same ideas about making music together.
Dave: There's so much going on in an Outrunners track, little bips and bobs here and there, it creates quite an atmosphere. How do you start to write a song? What inspires you guys to start something new and say "no, this part should go like this..."?
Stephen Falken: That kind of information is rated “confidential”.
Dave: Could you tell me a little bit about the Valerie scene which you guys are a part of? I've loved everything I've heard from the "Valerie Bands", but still am intrigued as to what Valerie is. Is it a scene? A movement? A collective of groups with shared ideals? With all those other bands in the scene, it seems like everyone has a very unique sound, but there's something there in each band that is similar. I don't know what it is, but I can tell it's there, and that you guys join up together. That isn't really a question is it? Umm, I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there a sense of camaraderie between the Valerie groups??
Pierre de la Touche: Valerie is all that! It’s a collective of groups, a sound, a spirit, an inspiration, but, stronger than all, a group of friends that shares their influence in a blog. I think that having a look to the blog and the myspaces of the artists tells more than any complicated demonstration ;)
Dave: I understand you've been playing some live shows, how are they working out? Since the tracks are so vast and expansive, how are you guys translating that on stage?
Pierre de la Touche: For the moment we are just playing as dj. Moving our complete studio set would be very hard ! In our dj sets, we try to make something very epic. Something stronger than ‘just making people dance’. Have a listen to Discopolis from Lifelike and Kris Menace to see what I mean.
Dave: I thought it was interesting to see that vocal remix on your myspace page, it got me thinking, this does actually work pretty well, have you guys ever thought about doing vox with your songs, or are you keeping them strictly instrumental for a reason?
Pierre de la Touche: Basically, our music is void of vocals. Jontanamo, who makes this great remix, added his own voice and it sounds great ! But, for the moment, The Outrunners original soundtrack will remains voiceless...
Dave: I see that you guys have been getting a bunch of remixes done, does this mean in turn you'll be doing some remixes for other people?
Pierre de la Touche: We try to find time ! The release of our 1st EP is coming. I have some tracks to finish for my next funky filtered house EP and some work to do with The Freshmakers (our next single, ‘Miracle’, will be released soon). But yes we will do remixes for other people. That’s a very interesting work!
Stephen Falken: I hope so.
Dave: What's in the future for you guys, surely there's a release to come soon? You mentioned a digital single last time we spoke, right? What's in the pipeline?
Pierre de la Touche: Yes! The release of our 1st EP is coming soon on Lemon & Lime records (Blazing Speed And Neon Lights With You). We will be distributed on Beatport, Juno and, later, on Itunes. It will contains the original track, 2 remixes and a bonus track. I also hope we’ll make more gigs with Valérie as all the crew is great, we have a lot of fun together and a lot of people seems to be interested by our spirit :)
Dave: Finally, I just remembered this, with Valerie now, France seems to be increasing its bid to take over the world with ridiculously good music. As an outsider I can only imagine what they put in the water over there, but why is it, do you guys think, that France is so popular and consistently turning out exciting artists right now? Is it being French? Or is it something more, something you have to be in the scene there to understand?
Pierre de la Touche: We really don’t know ! We make music. That’s all!
Stephen Falken: More than the game in itself, we were influenced by the general mood of Turbo Outrun and the name sounds good. Video games like all subcultures of that time influenced us. Once a year i like to play on my NeoGeo.
Pierre de la Touche: As Stephen said, this is much more a tribute to Video Games of that time than a tribute precisely to this game. When I was a young kid I was able to stay hours looking my brother (who is 8 years older than me) playing with his Sinclair Spectrum and, later, his Amstrad.
Dave: I guess this is a sort of a follow on from the first question, but what influences your guys tastes and movements as musicians? Whenever I listen to Blazing Speed And Neon Lights With You I for some reason think Blade Runner and the Vangelis score. It's never as groovy as Blazing Speed but i think it's just something about the atmosphere present in both.
Stephen Falken: From Vangelis to Patrick Cowley and so many pioneers of synthesiser music to be named …. Blade Runner is my favourite movie and the outrunners are heavily influenced by Cyberpunk culture. For more modern influences i can mention Alan Braxe & Fred Falke, Lifelike or Maethelvin.
Pierre de la Touche: Maybe are we making music for a movie that doesn’t exists ;). From Michael Mann, John Carpenter, Ridley Scott to Lifelike, Vince Di Cola, College and Jan Hammer. I think that we are equally influenced by movie makers and musicians...
Dave: Since you guys are relatively new to the scene I can't really find a bio on you guys, could you give me a little band history? What was it that brought you two guys together to start making music? Do you guys share the same ideas about making music?
Stephen Falken: Before meeting PDLT I was making unreleased new age music with my synthesizers, my brain has been formatted I cant remember anything before that period. Pierre and I share the same love for synthesizer epic et blazing melodies so we decided to unite our forces.
Pierre de la Touche (with Norman : I started to play as as techno/electro dj 10 years ago. I am very influenced by the late 90s ‘french touch’ using (and abusing!) looped funky sample and low pass filters so I started to make that kind of music in 2005 and released some vinyls since. I also worked with College the same year. Since 2006, I’m also a member of The Freshmakers( with Doray and Arno Cost). As Stephen said, we decided to make music together when we discovered that we were all together very influenced by the same artists, epic sounds and graphical universes. And yes, we share exactly the same ideas about making music together.
Dave: There's so much going on in an Outrunners track, little bips and bobs here and there, it creates quite an atmosphere. How do you start to write a song? What inspires you guys to start something new and say "no, this part should go like this..."?
Stephen Falken: That kind of information is rated “confidential”.
Dave: Could you tell me a little bit about the Valerie scene which you guys are a part of? I've loved everything I've heard from the "Valerie Bands", but still am intrigued as to what Valerie is. Is it a scene? A movement? A collective of groups with shared ideals? With all those other bands in the scene, it seems like everyone has a very unique sound, but there's something there in each band that is similar. I don't know what it is, but I can tell it's there, and that you guys join up together. That isn't really a question is it? Umm, I guess what I'm trying to ask is, is there a sense of camaraderie between the Valerie groups??
Pierre de la Touche: Valerie is all that! It’s a collective of groups, a sound, a spirit, an inspiration, but, stronger than all, a group of friends that shares their influence in a blog. I think that having a look to the blog and the myspaces of the artists tells more than any complicated demonstration ;)
Dave: I understand you've been playing some live shows, how are they working out? Since the tracks are so vast and expansive, how are you guys translating that on stage?
Pierre de la Touche: For the moment we are just playing as dj. Moving our complete studio set would be very hard ! In our dj sets, we try to make something very epic. Something stronger than ‘just making people dance’. Have a listen to Discopolis from Lifelike and Kris Menace to see what I mean.
Dave: I thought it was interesting to see that vocal remix on your myspace page, it got me thinking, this does actually work pretty well, have you guys ever thought about doing vox with your songs, or are you keeping them strictly instrumental for a reason?
Pierre de la Touche: Basically, our music is void of vocals. Jontanamo, who makes this great remix, added his own voice and it sounds great ! But, for the moment, The Outrunners original soundtrack will remains voiceless...
Dave: I see that you guys have been getting a bunch of remixes done, does this mean in turn you'll be doing some remixes for other people?
Pierre de la Touche: We try to find time ! The release of our 1st EP is coming. I have some tracks to finish for my next funky filtered house EP and some work to do with The Freshmakers (our next single, ‘Miracle’, will be released soon). But yes we will do remixes for other people. That’s a very interesting work!
Stephen Falken: I hope so.
Dave: What's in the future for you guys, surely there's a release to come soon? You mentioned a digital single last time we spoke, right? What's in the pipeline?
Pierre de la Touche: Yes! The release of our 1st EP is coming soon on Lemon & Lime records (Blazing Speed And Neon Lights With You). We will be distributed on Beatport, Juno and, later, on Itunes. It will contains the original track, 2 remixes and a bonus track. I also hope we’ll make more gigs with Valérie as all the crew is great, we have a lot of fun together and a lot of people seems to be interested by our spirit :)
Dave: Finally, I just remembered this, with Valerie now, France seems to be increasing its bid to take over the world with ridiculously good music. As an outsider I can only imagine what they put in the water over there, but why is it, do you guys think, that France is so popular and consistently turning out exciting artists right now? Is it being French? Or is it something more, something you have to be in the scene there to understand?
Pierre de la Touche: We really don’t know ! We make music. That’s all!
The Outrunners - Cool Feeling [HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION]
The Outrunners - (Another) Cool Feeling (Maethelvin Remix)
2 comments:
just discovered Valerie and im lovin it. really is a cinematic feel to the music. i turned on The Outrunners and muted the sound on Knightrider (the tv-show, not the band) and sat back and got swept away, beautiful. keep it Valerie, and Hyperbole for an awesome blog.
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店經紀,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店工作,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
專業酒店經紀,
合法酒店經紀,
酒店暑假打工,
酒店寒假打工,
酒店經紀人,
菲梵酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
禮服酒店上班,
酒店小姐兼職,
便服酒店工作,
酒店打工經紀,
制服酒店經紀,
酒店經紀,
菲
梵,
Post a Comment