B77: «Concerts aren't something we care about».»

Paléo Festival 2019 - Lauriane Pipoz

Psychedelic electro duo B77 performed at the Paléo Festival on Tuesday, July 22. An opportunity for us to meet this group from Fribourg, formed by Léopold and Luca, before their audiovisual show. The two mysterious artists, who describe themselves more as record lovers who like to write their music «in their own bubble», did confide a few details about their approach to the stage in an interview about the making of their sounds.

Le Regard LibreYour music is very sophisticated. Do you have a musical background, or did you get into electro right away?

Léopold: No, neither of us has any musical training. Instead, we've listened to a lot of music since we were young. Our ideas came about in stages, through creation and experimentation. We've been making music together for over fifteen years now. More than musical training, the important thing is to understand the music you want to make, and that's a long road. Once you've understood that, once you know what you want, once you've got a direction, all you have to do is follow it: to get there, you have to understand what moves you, what you like, what gives you sensations and emotions. At the same time, of course, there's the technical aspect: at first, you have ideas but you don't know how to realize them, and then you learn how. That's the resourceful side: with the Internet, you can learn by yourself.

What if I ask you to translate what you like into words?

Léopold: We're looking for something quite simple, quite childlike. It's rather abstract. So we can hardly talk about it, but we manage to understand each other because we've known each other for so long.

Luca: We have very similar musical sensibilities, and we learned and nurtured this universe together. And we created our music from there.

You can feel the sounds vintage in your music. Why did you get into this?

Léopold: We're trying to recreate the sounds of the seventies, because that's the purest sound. It has very soft textures, it's not aggressive yet. We want the sound to feel like it's coming out of nature, not a recording studio. When we mix our vocals, we want them to sound like they're coming out of a forest. To recreate this, we have to go through sounds vintagewe prefer an older reverb and a new one, to be released in 2019. For sound textures, we'll be favoring sounds that are rather detuned - without getting too technical.

Luca: We also do it because it's what moves us. We didn't ask ourselves what would work best.

Do you base your music on your lyrics, or are you inspired by your music to write them?

Léopold: The lyrics are the last step, and perhaps the most difficult. They're added as an extra element: it's not necessarily central for us.

Luca: We're pretty demanding when it comes to the voice. On the other hand, the writing itself is rather secondary. We're not lyricists: that's not what moves us when we listen to music.

How do you collaborate: does one compose his music and the second add his own afterwards?

Léopold: Yes, that's how we work: often, one of us has an idea, and sends it off as a demo or mock-up. We work by correspondence: very rarely are the two of us in a studio together. When you're alone making music, there's often a moment when you get stuck: that's when the other person steps in. He or she may say, «Oh, that's inspiring! And that's the start of a game of ping-pong between the two of us.

Luca: We then meet in the studio for the final stage: the mix, the final touches.

What motivated you to go public with your music?

Léopold: I think it's always been a goal in itself. It's a culmination: if creations die on a hard disk, there's still a feeling of unfinished business. Releasing the tracks allows you to move forward, to say to yourself that something is finished and that you're moving on to something else. Recognition is also something we're sensitive to.

Luca: Sharing our music is a driving force: we create something and if it's good, we'll enjoy it, hoping that others will feel the same emotions when they listen to it.

Let's get out of the studio and talk about concerts again. Are you enjoying it?

Léopold: No, honestly, we're bored. We're really record people. Some concerts have influenced us, though. Like, for example, the Justice concert here at Paléo: no instruments, just machines, a superb sound. show visual, it was powerful. But it's not something that moves us.

Luca: Some concerts give us ideas, yes, but they'll never move us as much as a record.

So this will be your first time at Paléo as an artist. Are you looking forward to playing tonight?

Leopold: Of course! But it's not a consecration. As a Swiss band, we can easily come and play at Paléo.

What are your goals for the future?

Léopold: A single in September, and why not an album if we get there. We're always trying to go one step further.

Luca: When we launched this project, internationalization was our goal: we wanted to try and move beyond Switzerland's borders as quickly as possible. We've already succeeded to some extent. We're already reaching France, but why not try to reach England or the United States afterwards? We don't impose any borders on ourselves: we don't stop ourselves from dreaming big.

Write to the author: lauriane.pipoz@leregardlibre.com

Photo credits: © Paléo / Lionel Fusain