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OF THE WEEK: DEEP FOREST
Endangered Species
Paris, 21 June 2002 - Deep Forest, the
synth duo best known for their haunting 'world ambient' sound, have come
storming back into the music news with their fifth studio album. Entitled
Music Detected, the album is guaranteed to take fans and critics
completely by surprise - no vocal samplings and epic machine sequences
this time round! Instead, Eric Mouquet and Michel Sanchez work real instruments
and singers into their electro-groove, sending out a hard-hitting ecological
message with lyrics in English.
 After
rocketing to fame with their Pygmy/dance beat fusion Sweet Lullaby
in '92 - and pioneering a certain "French Touch" sound that
nourished the likes of Air, Daft Punk and Kid Loco - Deep Forest have
sought inspiration in obscure tribal sounds. But this time round the
duo take their musical mix one step further, defending their ecologist/humanist
philosophy in songs recorded with a bevy of gifted vocalists including
Anggun, Memphis blues singer Beverly Jo Scott and rising Korean star
Chitose Hajime.
This time round Mouquet and Sanchez proclaim their affiliation to
rock tradition, replacing samples and sequences with drums, guitars
and keyboards inspired by the German school of electronica (think
Kraftwerk and Klaus Shulze!) What's more, for the first time in his
career, Eric Mouquet steps in front of the mike, laying his Vocoderised
vocals on the first single release, Endangered Species . But rest
assured, the duo have not abandoned their forest roots altogether.
Music Detected still taps into the 'world fusion' grapevine, although
this time round the Deep Forest sound is even more global than ever
- as Messieurs Mouquet and Sanchez explain in our interview below:
RFI/Musique: You've definitely stuck your necks out and
taken a lot of risks on your new album. And one of the most impressive
things is that this time round instead of focusing on music from a particular
region, you've decided to embark listeners on a veritable world tour!
Eric
Mouquet: What
was really important for us was that this album shouldn't just be another
run-of-the-mill Deep Forest album. We didn't want to go out and discover
a new region, then serve up yet more instrumental musical ambiences
designed to 'transport' listeners to another world. We were determined
to stick our necks out and say something this time round. That's why
if you listen to the lyrics of the songs you'll find that they're actually
sort of 'protest' songs in a way. We're trying to make a point. There's
a part of the world that's actually exactly the way we describe it in
our songs. And it's about time people realised that music from this
part of the world is not necessarily like the nice "exotic"
sounds that are used in TV advertising these days!
RFI: That sounds a bit rich coming from you, given that Deep
Forest were the group responsible for launching the vogue for that kind
of music in the first place…
E.M:
When we started out ten years ago that 'exotic' fusion sound which has
become so standardised today was a radically new musical language. But
it's become old and tired now. In fact, it's been so done to death,
that we decided it was time for us to move on to new musical pastures.
It was time for us to start taking a few risks and push the Deep Forest
sound into a new dimension.
RFI: Your first single release, Endangered Species
, is a song with a clear ecological message. Are there any other songs
on the album where you feel you've taken a stand on particular issues?
E.M:
Well, the thing is, when you travel the world - if you actually take
the time to poke your nose outside luxury hotels or venture beyond idyllic
white-sanded beaches! - you find that the world's actually not all that
beautiful. There are parts of the world where nature has been completely
destroyed and people are living in absolutely appalling conditions.
We went to India recently and we were both deeply shocked to see the
conditions in which most people lead their daily lives! You suddenly
find yourself plunged into the harsh reality millions of Indians have
to endure every day. And you know you can't just sit there and do nothing
- you have to react! After what we'd seen in India the idea of sampling
elements of traditional Indian music and mixing them with some sort
of aseptisised ambient background to make it nice and acceptable for
Western ears just didn't interest us. We wanted things to have a harder
edge this time round. Take the song Dignity , for instance, where we
fuse a traditional Indian melody line with some pretty hard-hitting
lyrics in English which attempt to drive home the message that people
shouldn't overlook basic human dignities. Summing things up in a nutshell,
I'd say the whole album's impregnated with that message really.
There's another track on the album called Soul
Elevator . It's funny because when we were recording it we worked on
this verse of the Koran sung by a Turkish singer and mixed it in with
all these wonderful Led Zeppelin-sounding guitar riffs. And we were
really pleased with the result. But then September 11th came along and
world news caught up with us - and we were suddenly brought face to
face with our two ingredients mixed in a totally different way. You
know, you had the Twin Towers representing the West and everything and
the forces of Islamic fundamentalism at war against them on the other.
The two were pitted against each other in these images of absolute horror.
I mean, there we'd been locked away in our studio creating this cultural
mix of East and West and everything had been going absolutely hunky-dory,
in perfect harmony, and then we turned on the TV and saw the exact opposite.
But then that's what this album's all about really - reality - we're
not interested in serving up a series of nice little musical postcards
from around the world!
RFI: So, basically, the new album revolves around "world
music" in the most literal sense of the term!
E.M:
Absolutely! But you mustn't forget we're real "enfants du rock"
- we were raised on the sounds of the 70s and it's inevitable that those
influences should end up coming out in our music somewhere, although
in our case they're always fused with other things, never served up
in their raw state. Our references are pretty solid really. In fact,
I'd say our influences are part of music history itself. You can't beat
a good old guitar riff from Hotel California or Jumpin' Jack Flash !
RFI: There's also a pretty impressive guest list of 'world'
vocals on your new album courtesy of artists like Yver from Bombay,
Stevka Iordanova from Poland and Chitose Hajime from Korea, not to mention
BJ the American singer and Anggun and Angela…
E.M:
Well, Anggun's really made a name for herself on the music scene in
France and Asia, but the other guest artists on our new album are a
lot more 'underground'. They don't really have a career to speak of
as yet, although some of them are actually starting to take off now.
One thing's for sure, they're not the kind of pop singers that get played
back to back on MTV - and yet they've all got the most amazing voices!
What really interested us on this album was delving in there and bringing
out the emotional quality of the singers' vocals.
RFI: You certainly did a great job with Chitose Hajime - a Korean
singer who's just scored a huge hit in Japan!
E.M:
Yes,
Chitose's currently number one in Japan. She literally rocketed to the
top of the charts overnight! And I must say, it came as a bit of a surprise
to her record company because they certainly didn't do a major promotional
campaign or anything. They just sent the single off to a few radio stations
and that was that. And then everyone started ringing in, blocking the
switchboards, trying to find out who it was! What happened with Chitose
was we were out in Japan and someone shoved a copy of her album into
my hand, saying " You've absolutely got to listen to this!"
Anyway, I didn't think anything more of it but when I got back to my
hotel I stuck the album on my CD-player and listened to the first two
tracks. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I didn't need to listen to any
more - her vocals were so extraordinary that I was straight on the phone
to her after that!
RFI: And then there's the interesting
choice of vocals recorded with the Vocoder. How did that come about
Michel?
Michel
Sanchez:
Well, as far as we're concerned, the Vocoder's always been a symbol
of the first steps the synthesiser took towards 'humanisation'. There
was this period in music where we were all desperately trying to come
up with a more human sound on our synths/ Meanwhile all the music critics
were sitting round moaning that it was a cold instrument, only capable
of producing robotic sounds. And then the Vocoder came along and it
was brilliant. It was the first machine that came close to producing
a human sound. George Duke totally blew me away with the sounds he came
up with and Herbie Hancock used the Vocoder superbly well too.
E.M:
It's funny because I think in a few years the Vocoder will become a
sort of dinosaur of 'futuristic instruments'. I mean, when you take
a look at the recent leaps and bounds in musical technology it's amazing,
everything's been completely digitised and studios can now create voice
models on computers the way they do image models in the film world.
More and more these days we sit there watching these hi-tech movies
and we don't even realise the decor's been totally recreated via digital
technology. Take Gladiator , for instance, it's amazing the special
effects guys managed to 'cut and paste' the entire decor using just
a quarter of the actual Coliseum!
And the amazing thing is the music world's evolving in exactly the same
direction now. You're getting more and more of these special 'sound
cards' which allow you to program vocals to sound like whoever you choose.
Believe me, in around ten years from now, we're going to have virtual
singers. And I think that's an absolutely fascinating state of affairs.
It's like anything though - we'll have to take the rough with the smooth.
There'll obviously be some pretty awful, tacky 'virtual singers' at
first. But luckily there'll also be a few creative types around who'll
push the whole thing on to another dimension and do something brilliant
and artistic.
RFI: Virtual singers are actually a bit of a terrifying thought
though, aren't they?
E.M:
No,
I don't think so at all. On the contrary, in fact (laughs). Personally,
I've never been scared of innovation! I mean, let's face it, there have
been other radical musical innovations in history and they've all become
pretty standard these days. Take the electric guitar, for instance.
When musicians first picked up electric guitars I bet they scared the
wits out of people at the time! And imagine when Jean Sablon used a
microphone for the very first time people thought it was an absolute
scandal, but these days the microphone's become so commonplace that
we couldn't communicate with one another or make radio and TV programmes
without one! I don't think we should be scared of change. I think it's
great that there are creative artists out there opening up new paths
and experimenting with new techniques. These artists are real pioneers
and people follow along in their wake, exploiting a minuscule part of
their discoveries when they realise they can be profitable. Take the
contemporary art scene, for instance, and look at all the new possibilities
opened up by contemporary painting and video. They're already being
exploited in lots of the ads we see on TV these days.
 RFI:
Do you think the Deep Forest sound would be fundamentally different
if you weren't French?
E.M:
That's a question we've often stopped to ask ourselves actually. And
I think it's true to say that our particular way of harmonising melodies
and playing with musical forms has doubtless been influenced by French
culture - after all, French culture's made up of classical music as
well as songs. And I think we readily tap into the structure of certain
songs and ancient poetry, for example. Thinking in terms of six or eight
metrical feet when you write is an integral part of French culture.
RFI: But, of course, at the same time, through a gradual process
of colonisation, African rhythms and Raï have also become part
of French musical culture. You've been impregnated with that too!
M.S:
Every
time one style of music has rubbed shoulders with another and absorbed
parts of it it's produced some absolutely amazing results. Go back to
the beginning of the 20th century, for instance, when Ravel turned to
the jazz world for inspiration … And jazz itself took so much from
turn-of-the-century classical music. Listen to modern jazz and you'll
find it's been incredibly influenced by the work of composers like Debussy
or Darius Milhaud.
When
I first started getting into jazz fusion, what interested me most about
it was the whole 'fusion' side of things. I loved the fact that a guy
like Miles Davis actually wanted to get up on stage and play with Indian
musicians. You had to know how to push back the boundaries, of course,
but pushing back the boundaries led to the creation of some totally
amazing new styles. Personally, I've never been able to stick within
one particular framework. Improvisation's always been such an important
part of musicians' work - and although that way of thinking might have
got a bit lost at certain period's it's always been a fundamental part
of classical music teaching.. And when you come down to it I think that's
why the Deep Forest sound is capable of changing so radically from one
album to the next because both of us have always felt the need to cough
up whatever's going on in our guts and get it down on tape!
RFI: But, to go back to what I was saying earlier, I really
feel that this album stands out from your other work … I can't
help but say it's just more you than the others!
E.M:
Well,
our first album was a really magical experience - and I have to admit
it surprised us as much as the rest of the world! I think we went into
it without thinking about it really. In a way it was a cry straight
from the heart. But with the benefit of hindsight I have to say that
in my opinion Music Detected is our best album to date. It's definitely
our most authentic and innovative work. And I'm not just saying that
because it's our new album, but because I honestly think it's the best
thing we've done!
Interview:Gérard Bar-David
Translation: Julie Street
Photo on the homepage: Pierre René-Worms
Article taken from rfi
musique: http://www.rfimusique.com
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