Part 2

Without prior knowledge about how the music was made, it is easy to make comparisons between more machine based electronic music on the one hand and Vallées on the other. Tell me a bit about the learning phase of the project, please – what were the first pieces like and how would you describe the learning curve?

SB: As we were saying, we come from organic sounds enhanced with electronic material. Repetition and timbre are common stylistic elements, but they may only be a sprinkling. With the setup we created in a few hours, we were seeking interaction and transcendence. Urgency.

There was only one take for this recording. The progression curve was then dizzyingly exponential.

SH: It was a one-shot. A day and a half. An urgent need to hit “record” and play. The setup gave us the color and the confidence—in our organic sound, and in each other. That was enough.

We just played, talked it over, played again, then selected the best takes, edited, and mixed.

How, would you say are your live performances and your recording projects connected at the moment? How do they mutually influence and feed off each other?

SB: That’s the big thing these days.

This recording session was an intense moment. We started with no idea of what it would become. We did it, and now we are working on recreating it on stage.

SH: Yeah, we’ve just started a residency period to bring it to the stage.

Tell me a bit about the recording sessions to Vallées, please. How did the material gradually take shape?

SB: We arrived with the setups from our two solo projects. We quickly started exchanging signals within our respective chains.

Each of us, knowing our own setup well, could contain, suppress, or amplify the other’s sound while blending it with our own signal. By doing this repeatedly, we entered those intense feedback phenomena.

SH: Yes, and our previous experiences and collaborations with Parquet made this one flow effortlessly.

Are all the tracks on the album improvisations? Are they extracted from longer sessions, are they edited in any way?

SB: We had an enormous amount of material and had to make choices. There are, of course, a few edits, but our process didn’t leave much room for manipulation; we often had only a stereo mix and one or two ambient microphones.

Each piece remains very close to the original improvisation, preserving the energy and immediacy of our sessions.

Rhythm plays a very important part on the album and a lot of the most interesting developments in electronic music over the last decades were rhythm-oriented. Why do you think that is?

SB: I’m thinking here of high-quality electronic music. Sometimes I pass by the parents at my children’s school, listening to music on their phones at the gate or at the school fair, and I think the world is in trouble.

But elsewhere, what’s happening is truly exciting. We’ve moved beyond the era of sixteenth or thirty-second notes, everything locked to the click, or the four-on-the-floor beat.

I think this comes from several factors. Some musical cultures with their own traditions have started using computers, bringing new rhythms. Musicians in electronic scenes experiment with the tools to the fullest, exploring glitch music and digital artifacts, which creates entirely new rhythms. The mix of cultures, communication, the end of the world, and the tools themselves.

The access non-musicians now have to professional production tools is also part of it.

SH: When I hear rhythms, I also hear melodies—the pitch of the kick, the texture of a drum skin, whatever it may be. And when I hear a sequence of notes or chords, I hear rhythms inside them. I’m very sensitive to pulses and to highs in the sonic spectrum, to layers of material. So-called rhythm is just a gateway into the sonic world.

But I think we’re all sensitive to much more than rhythm alone.

I found myself quite often caught by the beats, but things rarely settle down or just keep “flowing.” Are these patterns entirely spontaneous or is there a method behind them? Why do you enjoy constant changes over, say, the simple, trance-like motion of a motoric beat?

SB: Everything here is just a reaction to the evolution of the monster. We had tried a few pre-planned techniques, but the most obvious approach was simply to launch a pulse into the system and observe what happened.

Depending on how each of us fed the system, the monster could awaken abruptly, and given its sonic power, we had to quickly find a way to calm it. It is in these moments that rhythm transforms, patterns unfold and dissolve, an unpredictable dance between control and chaos.

Everything here is reaction, a response to the monster’s ripples. We had attempted plans, considered methods, but the truth lay elsewhere. Send a pulse, observe, feel what happens. Each of us feeds the system, and the monster awakens, often brutally, always unpredictably. Its sonic power demands finding silence or changing the rhythm before it engulfs everything.

Then the rhythm bends, distorts, breaks, and rebuilds, a dance between control and chaos, where every moment carries its surprise, where nothing settles, everything slips away, and everything continues to flow.

SH: When we play and Seb sets a pulse, the interaction with the feedback system and the length of noise tails define the tempo. The space to play becomes very clear.

It makes me act and react spontaneously, without thinking in terms of complex patterns. It’s instinctive.
 
Many artists I speak to appreciate the input of soft- and hardware for generating “random” ideas or extremely complex patterns too hard to decipher for the human ear. I love how Vallées finds a unique perspective outside of these – what are your own thoughts on this?

SB: I come back to the excellence of the performer. I like the idea that the music already exists somewhere and that we are only a simple channel.

Chance is part of our daily life. We don’t decide much; we adapt to what evolves around us and choose a path at every moment in reaction to the unexpected.

SH: I use tools to reach a goal—not to expect them to generate ideas for me. If I need a machine to give me ideas, it probably means I don’t have much to say at that moment. In that case, better to say nothing and wait until something comes.

Art is where I decide what I want to express. I can look for help along the way, but at a precise point in the creative process. No machine will ever do that part for me.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though producing 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?

SB: Today, I don’t really make a distinction between making a coffee and making music. I have spent far more time thinking about music than about coffee, but I have probably drunk more coffees than I have performed concerts. The notion of a state comes back to me often: a concentration, an open tunnel.

I worked with musicians from Réunion who, as soon as they stepped on stage, shone with an almost sacred intensity without doing anything extra. They simply opened a door, humbly. I like the idea that music is not a closed space, that it is everywhere in our lives, and that our lives are everywhere in music.

I have two children, four and seven years old. Creativity is everywhere for them. In every drawing, cutting, or collage, they open that door with all their heart. They teach me a great deal about what it means to be creative.

SH: Music is a powerful means of expression—for artistic practice, for listening, as an active way of receiving and sharing emotions. I’m particularly sensitive to it—it has helped me express, shake, feel, cry, share …

But there are many other ways too. If making a good cup of coffee can deeply move someone, spark an emotion, or connect people, then I’m all for it!