Name: Julienne Dessagne aka Fantastic Twins
Occupation: Producer, DJ
Nationality: French
Current event: Fantastic Twins will perform at Detect Classic Festival which will take place August 11th-13th at Bröllin castle in Fahrenwalde, Germany. More information and tickets here. About her performance, she says: "I’ll perform live on Aug 12, on stage with modular effect units, sequencer, sampler, effects pedals, and my vocals live. Looking forward!"
Gear Recommendations: I’d say anything from Make Noise is endless fun and quality guaranteed. I love their 0 Coast, the Mimeophon and QPas combo does wonders for me, Morphagene is amazing too, etc. But ultimately, you have to find what works best for you and helps you realise your ideas. If that’s Garage Band or an iPhone app, I don’t see why not.

If you enjoyed this Fantastic Twins interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.   



The views of society towards technology are subject to constant change. How would you describe yours?

When what you do all day consists of manipulating sounds and composing music, no matter the genre, technology is involved every step of the way, from start to finish. Recording, processing, composing, producing, mixing, mastering, broadcasting and so on. Electronic music is born out of technology. In a way, it tells the story of the interaction and feedback between humans and machines. That’s just fascinating.

So as a music maker, working constantly with machines, I can only embrace technology and appreciate the endless possibilities it provides me with to create and share my music with an audience.

What were your very first steps in music like and how would you rate the gains made through experience - can one train/learn being an artist/producer?

I am a self-taught artist / producer. My first experiences making music were just fun, I didn’t care much about the finished result. What I was making and why I was making it was not part of a bigger plan. It was very much about the process itself - playing with sound - and the primitive enjoyment that came along with it.

Of course, the more you learn, the more complex it gets. You become aware of your limits, it can feel frustrating or overwhelming. But that’s also the beauty of it, you never stop learning, through the highest highs and the lowest lows. Making music like any other art requires the highest level of dedication, discipline, abnegation, and possibly sacrifices.

In the beginning, it may feel like you’re just doing your hobby full time, but next thing you know you’re locked in your studio all week, touring at the weekend and when you’re back home your own kid barely recognises you, lol.

Making music, in the beginning, is often playful and then becomes increasingly professionalised. How important is playfulness for you today and if it is important, how do, concretely, you retain it?  

It doesn’t have to be entirely antagonistic. Things can - and should - remain playful while becoming more professionalised.

I personally get that kid-around-toys kind of excitement every time I learn new things, make new sonic discoveries, or try new machines. And then, there are times when I’m drowning under deadlines and there’s no time left for playful explorations. When those phases become too frequent or last too long, it’s fatal for the soul. Playing is almost a discipline, you have to remind yourself to allow time for it.

I remember one day, a few years ago, I had had one of these excruciating days in the studio, a deadline approaching and nothing good was coming along. In the evening, I was teaching a music course to a 10-year-old student. She recorded a bunch of sounds, drums loops and sequences relentlessly, she was having so much fun.

As I was observing her, I got taught a lesson myself - I got reminded how essential that playful mindset is to making music, no matter your level of experience. You need those aimless days and nights for great things to happen.

Which other producers were important for your development and what did you learn from them?

I’d say my friend Aksel Schaufler aka Superpitcher. I’m not so keen on that kind of terminology but we’ve had what could be described as a mentor-muse relationship. He taught me to bring tracks down to their essential idea, avoid superficiality, gimmicks and overkill. And to bring the soul into what I do. He’s a master at creating depth and space in a piece of music, that has had a big influence on the way I produce.

He’s also my favourite trusted pair of ears, we exchange about our respective work almost every week for many years. We collaborate sometimes too. And then there are of course also the artists I don’t know personally but who I admire and whose work inspired me.

How and for what reasons has your music set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear and software for you?

My studio set-up and my live set-up both change constantly. Mainly to satisfy my nerdy addictions. My live kit usually evolves according to parameters like my mood and how much I can humanly travel with.

My studio set-up evolves according to my needs and the kind of projects I’m working on - it always included hardware, vintage analogue synths, groove boxes, various drum machines, digital synths, effect processors, sequencers, samplers, software, etc. In the last 4-5 years I also started building a modular euro-rack. That felt overwhelming at first but now I start to have a better understanding of what I’m looking for and what works for me, so I avoid going too far down the rabbit hole.

My favourite piece of gear is my Eventide H3000 which I upgraded to H3500. It’s a digital effect processor from the 80s. I use it pretty much on every single piece of music I make. As for software, I’d say Universal Audio Plugins and FabFilter EQs are my essential go-tos.

Have there been technologies which have profoundly influenced, changed or questioned the way you make music?

I’m always looking for ways to manipulate and process sounds. So from that perspective, modular synthesis has been a fascinating new portal for me.

There is something poetic about the fact that you can never quite reproduce the same sound twice with it. It pushes me to imagine music in a different way, to try and cut loose the more formatted approaches, and it encourages me to pay more attention to the intrinsic qualities of the sound because I spend more time and effort building it from scratch. And when I play live, it opens space for improvisation, sounds that only exist in the moment of the performance.

We live in times where we want to record, own and archive every moment of our lives, so the idea of live music as a thing of passage, something you cannot catch but that has the power to transform you, feels all the more appealing to me.

What is the relation between innovative tools and "innovative music"?

Innovative tools can potentially lead to innovative music but innovative music doesn’t necessarily require innovative tools.

Ultimately it always comes down to imagination and ideas. Technology can do pretty much everything nowadays, but if you’re lazy with how you use it or just use it the way everybody else does, there’s a strong chance the output will sound utterly boring.

Late producer SOPHIE said: “You have the possibility with electronic music to generate any texture, and any sound. So why would any musician want to limit themselves?” What's your take on that and the relevance of limitations in your set-up and process?

It depends on how you define limitations. I think what SOPHIE was referring to was about composing only within the limits of pre-established rules, especially pop music which often just replicates the same formulas over and over. I can only agree with that, technology provides us producers with so many options to create beyond conventional schemes.

But it’s a different thing that when you deliberately make the decision to limit yourself to a few pieces of gear or limiting a track to one essential idea, I find that can open to endless creative roads and often results in a strong piece of music.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, what does your current production workflow/process look like?

It depends on the kind of project I’m working on. For my live set, it’s usually some small and regular changes / additions to the general structure I already have in place, to keep things interesting and test out new ideas.

When I work on a soundtrack, generally for contemporary dance, I go through a phase of research before I start recording material and then exchange back and forth with the choreographer, adjusting the music to the play until the full score is formed.

When I work on a release, there’s not really a clear pattern. I can spend weeks recording sounds, sometimes I get a clear intuition of what I want to do and try to follow it through, and if not, I archive all my recordings in a library until they find their way into a track. I can go on for weeks recording tons of stuff without finishing anything, navigating the sea without horizon in sight. But I’ve learned to accept that these phases are part of the process and there’s no such thing as time wasted.

From your experience, are there things you're doing differently than most or many other artists when it comes to gear and production?

I have no idea. Once at Superbooth in Berlin I met the manufacturer of a small modular company and told him I used their module for manipulating my own vocals. He was so pleased and said he’d never heard someone use it that way.

I do that a lot with effects units too, say if a preset is made for treating drums, I’ll often use it for a different purpose. I’m sure a lot of other producers do that too.

In relation to sound, one often reads words like “material”, “sculpting”, and “design”. Do you feel these terms have a relationship to your own work of and approach towards sound? Do you find using presets lazy?

I have nothing against presets, sometimes it’s a good starting point, from there, you tweak parameters to shape the sound the way you want to have it. As far as I’m concerned, there’s always “sculpting” involved anyway.

It’s nothing groundbreaking though, that’s basically what electronic music is about. Experimenting with sound. Any kind of sound.

Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. Which of these have proven particularly fruitful in this regard?

I’d say sequence generators - there are tons of tools (software and hardware) out there that basically create sequences and polyrhythms for you. They’re great yet require little artistic input. I personally find some of these tools sometimes do too much or too random, and that results in music that is technically interesting but emotionally dull.

I don’t find it very exciting when a machine or tool does it all for you - it’s the interaction with the human mind that makes the output worth listening to. Otherwise you may as well just listen to YouTube tutorial music.

To some, the advent of AI and 'intelligent' composing tools offers potential for machines to contribute to the creative process. What are your hopes, fears, expectations and possible concrete plans in this regard?

I think what we’re witnessing with AI and the questions it raises is quite similar to what happened with the generalisation of sampling techniques in the 80s. AI opens so many interesting doors for music-making, I see it in no way as a threat to creativity. I’d even say that if, as an artist, you feel threatened to be “replaced” by AI, it’s perhaps because you’ve already given up on pushing your own creative boundaries.

If you look at what people like Holly Herndon have been doing with AI / machine learning in the last few years, there are so many fascinating aspects to it. Now, the main red flag and what we should be concerned about in regard to AI is consent and protection of the artist’s welfare - same as sampling raised copyright issues.

Technology progresses incredibly fast, however, laws to monitor it and prevent abuse always take a lot longer to be implemented. Songwriters, and composers face new challenges constantly and too often are denied respect, paid unfairly, etc so it’s essential to fight for a legal environment that protects artists.

Technology has continually taken on more steps of the compositional process and "creative" tasks. From your point of view, where does "technology" end and "creativity" begin?

Like I said before, relying too heavily on creative tools may result in technically interesting music but can also sound extremely boring, artificial and lack personality. And most importantly, it will probably not stand the test of time and may sound outdated as soon as new technologies come along.

Without ideas, imagination, sensitivity, sensuality, basically all human qualities (at least so far), tools will just be tools.

If you could make a wish for the future directly to a product developer at a Hard- or Software company – what are developments in tools/instruments you would like to see and hear?  

There’s already more on the market than what I could wish for to be honest!

But there is one sampler / drum machine that DMX Crew designed for himself to recreate an original sampling drum machine from the late 80s called RSF SD140 that he couldn’t get repaired. His version looks and sounds amazing but it isn’t for available for sale, which somehow makes it even cooler.

But I would kill to get one.