Video Interview | Subtitles

Deep Forest, a group from nothern France, met global success 15 years ago with their song "Sweet Lullaby". More than 3 million copies were sold worldwide, in the middle of the "world music" wave. Today, the group is in stanby but its two co-founders each continue on their own in their private studios. Eric Mouquet works on what he calls "the voices of the world", which he associates with another one of his passions: astronomy. He had two hi-tech observatories installed in his backyard. Deep Forest, "the voice of the stars". A film by Sebatian de Carelle and Jean Marie Barfeti.

Only 15 years ago, a world music wave sweeps the music industry. A group from nothern France is going to meet planetary success. The faces are unknown. However this duo and this tune may be familiar. The group: Deep Forest. The hit: Sweet lullaby, sold to more than 3 million copies in the world.

{Eric Mouquet} Deep Forest has been very important because we immediately became famous everywhere in the world. We received many awards: golden discs from many countries... A fantastic time was when we received the Grammy Award in the US. It's the grammophon you can see here. Just behind you see the world award, also won in 1995. All these constitute exceptional memories because this music of Deep Forest just started here in the north of France, from a collaboration between Michel Sanchez and myself, and it went all around the world.

15 years later, the group Deep Forest is in standby. Although the members actively work on solo projects, the musical spirit and universe remain the same. Indeed, in his private studio Eric Mouquet continues working on "The voices of the World".

{Eric}We try to find sounds with a "forest" touch... to this we add we add African voices... and all the emotion comes from the harmonics we add.

With the success of Deep Forest, Eric Mouquet has gained some wealth enabling him to satisfy a childhood dream: astronomy. Two gigantic observatories in the back of his garden. He bought himself the most sophisticated equipment of amateur astronomy in France.

{Eric}Here we are under the cupola of the biggest telescope. It's a 3.5m large cupola. Here you can see the control system. Everything is routed to the computers.

A 400mm telescope, a second one with 106mm, equipment allowing the man from Valencienne to travel millions of light years. Eric Mouquet specialized himself in the photography of the sky. Galaxies, nebulas now belong to the musicians's universe.

{Eric}This is the device that captures the pictures of the stars. As the lights are very weak, I often use exposure times of more than two/three hours.

After long hours of patience, this is the reward: beautiful and unique pictures, that benefit from a color filtering process and a special framing.

We meet Eric Mouquet again, at the end of a long recording day with singer Catherine Lara. It is about 11 o'clock. The sky is clear, no clouds in the horizon. The chase after galaxies can start again.

{Catherine Lara}What Eric does, he does with a lot of attention to detail and meticulousness. He is a perfectionist. The equipment he uses is very impressive and most importantly, he makes wonderful pictures.

{Eric}We are now at... at 25 million light years. It is far away, but how far?

Computers make miracles. Eric controls his telescopes from his kitchen; but nothing replaces the pleasure of a night walk to the backyard. Eric is now famous in the world of astronomy. A fame brought by this picture of the nebula NGC 7635.

{Eric}The sky was excpetional, very clear and stable. And when I saw the first pictures, I thought to myself, this night might not be too bad. The material, the gazes were boiling. You really felt you were in the cosmos. This picture fascinates me.

This picture was awarded in autumn by the NASA. A picture that opened the doors to the science forum of Villeneuve d'Asques. Now playing in the planetarium: Deep Sky. A show mixing Deep Forest's music and the sky pictures of Eric Mouquet.

{Planetarim employee}We hereby took the opportunity to show amateur photography, which we normally don't do, since we rather present pictures from space probes or big observatories. The pictures of Eric are very professional.

{Eric}When I went to the first night of the show, I was very moved. It was working very well, with a lot of emotion. They are going to develop the experience, modifying 2/3 of things. We also have another project where I will be more involved since I would provide specific music for the planetarium.

The other big project at the moment is a musical one: Deep Brazil. This album will be about the protection of the Amazonian forest and the link between Africa and Brazil. "Africa Brazil", definitely a hit!

{Eric}I hope that this music will be appreciated. Deep Forest had such success around the world that fans will recognize themselves in this album.

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A very big thanks to Dekeirel and France3 for the interview and to Florian for the translations