Michel Sanchez Discusses 'Music Detected'

Michel Sanchez (left), Eric Mouquet (right)

Listening to your new album "Music Detected" one is given the impression that this is exactly how Deep Forest should sound in the 21st century. Were you anxious to get such a modern sound?

(Michel) It's true, that together with Eric we wanted to create something completely different. Keeping of course certain elements characteristic of Deep Forest, such as: electronics, with samples of traditional music. But we also decided to add some changes - first of all, to introduce more energy into our songs. We finally succeeded by using new instruments (besides others) - we added guitar sounds from the 70's to the atmosphere of Deep Forest.

The first single "Endangered Species" expresses the fears of people living at the turn of the century.

It's also a kind of newness for us - it's the first time that texts are so important in our songs. A clear meaning in clear words. The idea of "Endangered Species" is that soon people could become the next endangered specie on Earth. No matter the technology we know and use, we can never be sure of tomorrow. By destroying the environment and the whole planet, we also destroy the human specie in a way.

The first single and already a surprise. Besides the original version on the album there is also a remix of "Endangered Species" by Galleon. How did this idea come about?

We chose Galleon because we like there sound a lot. Most of all they are specialists of club music. They know exactly what people listen to and what is on top. A couple days ago I got their debut album, and I have to say, they are great engineers and sound specialists. Listening to "Endangered Species" you can at once get the English atmosphere of this song. When they remixed this song they saved all the key characteristic elements. They understood what we meant recording the original version and they added only the atmosphere of modern clubs. I like their modernity.

Speaking of Galleon you used the words "engineers" and "specialists", but you haven't called them "musicians" once.

You're right, but it was just an accident. Of course I think of them as musicians, and very good composers. As I said, they have recorded a very interesting album. But it's true, both Galleon and Deep Forest create on the base of something that has already been created once. Our role is to take the exact meaning of this music and present it to people in a way that will be interesting no matter the prevailing times or trends.

Does this mean this is the beginning of working with young French groups, and playing dance music? Can we expect a duet of Deep Forest and Air or Daft Punk?

Sure you can! Deep Forest has always been known by a more ancient, historical sound. Although we used electronics, and thanks to it, we created very modern music or very old music. But we have always created the music using all the best and newest hardware. That's very important to us. But maybe because we write our songs in a very traditional way it was not so noticeable. So I don't see a problem with joining forces with the ones who know the meaning of making fine, modern dance music, as for example Daft Punk. We have been dreaming of doing a duo with Massive Attack for a long time.

One of the best French 'export goods' is your dance music. Do you personally like the music of Air, Daft Punk, Cassius and others?

Yes of course! I also like albums by other French groups, not as well known as the ones you mentioned, but also very good such as Roudoudou and Imotet. I Like the way the music is mixed on these records. A few years ago we had a real boom in France of dance music groups. That gave birth to many groups copying and stealing from each other. But it's now obvious that it was a fad, and not much resulted from it. The idea was to get your own piece played in clubs, no matter how it was done. But nobody took notice to whether their piece was good or bad. Daft Punk got so far, because they succeeded in creating a new formula, new style based on mixing together sounds from the past with contemporary ones.

In the Deep Forest discography it's difficult to find a large amount of remixes of your songs. Is it that you are a bit afraid of remixes, and you treat them like the "bad that has to happen", for the need of dancefloors?

We understand the role of remixes and we agree completely, that they allow the original versions of the records to live longer. But sometimes rough tiffs occur between our record company and us, especially when they propose to us someone who we don't want. It happens because sometimes this person is well-known or his/her name guarantees us play time in the clubs or success of the song on the music charts. We often want someone who is more independent from the dance 'underground', who would care more about the original piece. Fortunately the decision-making voice here is still our voice.

Don't you think that the remixes spoil your creation, because they take out part of the original atmosphere of the piece?

No, because the way we are composing is also based on the rule of remix. In both cases, the machines have an important role, as well as samplers and editors. Everything we record, even drums, we put into ProTool and cut, copy, paste various pieces. Its like working on a remix. True, the effect of the music is very different, but as long as the remix carries with itself the important parts of the recording, it's just well done. The only question is, the atmosphere - it also depends on the mixing person. Some of the remixers can create the accurate atmosphere even in the remix.

Let's talk about the process of recording your albums. Does the idea come first and then you look for adequate compositions or the other way around?

First we have to go somewhere to listen to traditional music, which hasn't appeared yet in our creation. This time, together with Eric, we went to Tokyo and India, and there we recorded some traditional songs. When we came back to France, about two years ago to start work on the new album, we planned what would be the leading motive of this album. We started to compose, first separately, then we compared what we had done and we added new instruments (as for Deep Forest), for example live drums and guitar. Our ideas were going the same way, we wanted to give our music a completely new sound. Later we met such vocalists as Beverly Jo Scott, Anggun, and Angela McCluskey - sometimes not even in person, but thanks to their albums or songs on the radio. We thought that this time English or American voices could be used, because they are also part of the so called 'world music' trend, never used by us before.

So where did the title of this album come from? - "Music Detected"

It was the title of a song we recorded for this album. We chose this title because Deep Forest's music has always come from computers, and people just felt emotions and beauty in it by themselves later.

I'm just looking at the title list on the album and I don't see a song called "Music Detected" though.

Yes, it didn't appear on the final version of the album, but we liked the title so much that we decided to name the whole album after it. (laugh)

So maybe we can at least hear it as an additional track on the single?

Rather not, because we decided that its sound doesn't fit into the sound of the whole album. It was in a slightly different style.

Your album is so different, it's difficult to guess this time what your inspirations were. It was easier to figure out with the past productions: this is Africa, and this is Eastern Europe.

This time we decided to mix as many cultures and influences as possible. It was quite important, because in the past years we were concentrating only on particular graphical regions. Yet 'world music' is really the music from all of the world, not favoring any particular places. That's why as I said, for the first time we engaged English and American vocalists when recording this album. Why not? So many groups tried to copy our sound that we had to introduce some new innovations, so that we don't sound like a copy of ourselves.

Is mixing so many cultures your answer to the term "globalization"?

It's a matter of musical taste what you like. Its also a way of liberating yourself, free from schemes. In this world everyone can live with everyone, we don't have to stay in our place of birth for our whole lives. You have to get to know the world. That was our main idea behind the album.

"Marta's Song" was once very popular in Poland. Do happen to know what Marta, who sang that song, is doing now?

That's interesting…...No, we haven't had any contact with Marta for quite a long time. I heard she recorded several albums with own music, but we haven't heard from her for quite some time.

When recording a new composition - how do you know it's already finished and you don't have to modify anything more? The way you record just teases to have something improved upon.

We had worked on this album until the last moments before it was produced. Together with Eric we work on our music rather slow. Fortunately the deadlines are determined at the beginning in the contracts. If they weren't we probably wouldn't let anyone take this material from us! (laugh) But I think, that this overload of ideas in music isn't a bad thing. It is for sure very inspiring. Working in twos has this advantage that the other person can always bring you back to the ground, saying: "it's good enough, leave it!"

And my last question: you are one of the most popular French groups in the world. Have French people ever wanted to influence you to record an album promoting French folk?

I don't exclude that possibility. The problem is that France is slowly loosing its cultural differences. Supplied by Great Britain we already gave up traditional French instruments. Similarly as in other countries, the importance of folk music is different in various parts of France. But it's obvious that it has become much less important in the last several years. The music of Deep Forest is understood, or at least in reaches every part of the world and in fact it could be a good way to promote our culture. And this loosing of traditional plots is typical for all cultures now I think. I was discussion this on my journeys to Japan and India. There they are only playing international hits on the radio. And the beautiful and valuable melodies sometimes are being forgotten. Our goal as Deep Forest is to show, that technology and tradition don't have to exclude each other, and one can help the other survive.

Thanks to Piotr and Narcyc for helping us translate this interview from Polish to English