Popular Computer

You’ve been around for a couple of years and was notably discovered by Tiefschwarz – what were you up too before you started releasing?
At the beginning of the nineties I studied cinema in Brittany in the west of France. In the summer I worked with computers calculating weights. When I was in Paris I worked in Theatres and Cinemas. I did lots of jobs and I even worked for a month at the LVMH to help prevent the millennium bug. I decided to make music on a computer because I found myself not able to direct people on a film set. Music came back to me naturally because I started playing bass and when I was teenager, I had dabbled in music further.
 
Your sound is very heavily influenced by French electro – but there’s also a nice focus on nu disco grooves. What did you listen to when you were growing up?
As a child I listened to contrasting styles of music, Ravel (Maurice Ravel) and disco music. I was born in the 70’s. I always listened to music through the radio. On the radio I heard artists like the Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, The Stranglers and later on New Order… it was a good time. As a teenager I fell in love with Serge Gainsbourg (the first period). Then I discovered pop music in the 90s with Prefab Sprout, Blur, Suede, Pulp, Pixies, Happy Mondays and Durutti Column etc. In 1998 Daft Punk came to save the dance floor from the awful Techno Trance Rave Acid Extasy time, remember, in the middle of the 90’s…but I don’t feel that close to French touch things. I don’t use samples for example. I’m trying to make something new but I fail all the time!! 

How did you get into the sound of dance and electronica?
My brother listened to the music of Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre. A friend of mine gave me a cassette of Yellow Magic Orchestra. In disco music I always loved the big kick. New order always put some melodies on tracks with a basic drum box and linear rhythm. With italo-disco music it was exactly the same things. After maybe 30 tracks on the computer I found that I felt comfortable with a minimalistic drum kit as a music base to build sounds something more “complicated”. It was in 2002 I had just finished the track “I can’t forget you” and a friend of mine, Alex, told me that it was the best thing I had done on a computer.
 
Then name Popular Computer is quite open ended and you can take different meanings from it – was this more of a social observation or was the name born from a love of digital productions?
I used to make music without hardware with a computer and a keyboard. Since 1998, computers have become very familiar to us. They are more like robots for us, a personal media and tool or instrument which was becoming more than popular. I was looking for a name that I can assume because I was not a traditional musician. I was making music with virtual instruments and a mouse. Microsoft offered to people not expensive computers. Apple was for professionals or rich people. So the meanings of the name Popular Computer are, I guess, a social observation (culture/art for everybody) + a love of digital productions possibilities. Music is a fantasy and computer can help you in that way.

You’ve remixed New Young Pony Club, Mylo, Hot Chip, Pacific!, The Whip and more….what do you look for when remixing a track?
I’m simply look for an atmosphere on a basic rhythm. Most of the time I keep the voices and sounds I like but I rebuild everything in order to find a new melody.
 
Your released your last album Senso Data in France and Asia – what is different  about this old work to the new album?
Most of the time I work on a track then 2 weeks later I break everything to make a different one. With “LiTE” I tried to keep the innocence of the tracks without too many sounds. I wanted a sunny album. I make the album with a story, with songs that feel better together. At the end of each track I imagined how I could start the following one. I took my time. I wanted a 40 minute CD time. I knew that it will be mastered at the Exchange and after that I didn’t want to work with people from Paris to release it.