Name: Sébastien Guérive
Nationality: French
Occupation: Composer, sound engineer, producer
Recent Release: Sébastien Guérive's new single "Omega VI", released shortly before his performance at the Scopitone Festival (also featuring Daniel Avery, among others) is out via Atypeek.
Recommendations: A book: Olivier Miquel L’écriture musical; Paulo Coelho L’alchimiste

[Read our Daniel Avery interview]

If you enjoyed this interview with Sébastien Guérive  and would like to find out more about his work, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.



When did you start writing/producing/playing music and what or who were your early passions and influences? What was it about music and/or sound that drew you to it?

I started playing the cello at the age of 6. I followed a classical curriculum until I was 18. At that time I didn't see myself becoming a great concert performer. But when I met some rock musicians who offered me to accompany them with my cello, it was my first experience of improvisation and composition.

Bjork's Homogenic album was a revelation to me and made me realise that you could mix string instruments with pop and electronic music.

When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening and how does it influence your approach to creativity?

Indeed music is vibratory and resonates in our body. How to explain that it generates emotion ?

I need to be be caught up in  a music that separates me from reality and in order to connect to my inner world.

How would you describe your development as an artist in terms of interests and challenges, searching for a personal voice, as well as breakthroughs?

When I started composing I didn't face the profession's view and only followed my instinct. The need for professionalization confronted me with the feedback of different people in the profession. I sometimes added more mainstream colours and arrangements to my music, even though it didn't correspond to my deepest convictions.

I then reinterpreted these convictions and put aside the superfluous to keep only the essential.

Tell me a bit about your sense of identity and how it influences both your preferences as a listener and your creativity as an artist, please.

The platforms have made me discover artists to whom I feel very close, and has confirmed my choices and my artistic approach.

I appreciate the freedom of tone of artists like Nils Frahm and Ben Frost, which strengthens my idea of exploring and creating uncategorised mixes.

[Read our Nils Frahm interview]

What, would you say, are the key ideas behind your approach to music and art?

I believe that every art form is there to question and propose multiple points of view.

As a composer I feel that one should never remain fixed and should leave  one's emotional sensors open while assuming one's singularity.

How would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in a “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

Part of my work is devoted to experimentation and research as well as new technologies. At the same time I continue to study harmony from classical music.

I try to find the perfect balance between innovation and tradition in my compositions.

Over the course of your development, what have been your most important instruments and tools - and what are the most promising strategies for working with them?

I use analog synthesizers and virtual instruments for the most part. I regularly develop my use of these instruments in order to stay in tune with the mood of the moment.

Take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work, please.

In the morning I take the time to listen to my drafts over coffee, then I make a selection of the best moments that I continue to develop throughout the day.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece, live performance or album that's particularly dear to you, please?

For a commission, I draw up a set of specifications for the needs of the stage directors or choreographers. I establish with them a sample playlist of existing music in order to set the main artistic directions and it is only from this moment that I start my composition work.

Concerning my albums: I define and organize all the sounds and textures I want to use. Then I launch into different improvisations that I record, followed by editing to keep the best moments.

The last step is the elaboration of the narration and the mixing.

Listening can be both a solitary and a communal activity. Likewise, creating music can be private or collaborative. Can you talk about your preferences in this regard and how these constellations influence creative results?

I am currently composing alone but cannot finish alone. I need an outside eye to help me to finish organizing the naration and keep only the good ideas. For that it is necessary to find the right person, the one who understands where we wanted to arrive with my friend composer Gregoire Vaillant.

It's very important to clarify the work and to remove all that can parasitize its understanding.

How do your work and your creativity relate to the world and what is the role of music in society?

One of my primary inspirations is nature and I aspire to transcribe this into sound and music. I am lucky enough to have a view of the sky from my studio and I like to compose while looking at it.

Art can be a way of dealing with the big topics in life: Life, loss, death, love, pain, and many more. In which way and on which occasions has music – both your own or that of others - contributed to your understanding of these questions?

I listen to a lot of music during the day, it accompanies me during the different moments of the day.

I choose the music in order to put me in a certain state. Often it's to soothe and refocus me as we live very intense lives. I think it affects my decisions and my behaviour.

How do you see the connection between music and science and what can these two fields reveal about each other?  

For some time now, through the video shoots that we make for live performances or for clips, we have been making labs where we play the chemist's apprentice. And through this I try to understand how the different materials fit together.

It's the same parallel as with the interweaving of sounds. Only the material changes

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing or performing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Yes clearly the work of composition has a spiritual dimension for me. It provokes and strengthens the states of mind. Even if it has to follow some rules of writing, music is able to contribute to the evolution of each human being.

This is the role of all the arts.

Music is vibration in the air, captured by our ear drums. From your perspective as a creator and listener, do you have an explanation how it able to transmit such diverse and potentially deep messages?

A common hypothesis is that musical tempo may influence our heart and breathing rates. For example, techno beats would speed up our heartbeats, meditative music would soothe them, and the distorted guitars of punk and metal would increase our blood pressure.

Another popular hypothesis is that the brain's rhythms, known as cerebral rhythms, can be accelerated by sound frequencies. Read more about this here.