How has your 2023 been and what are you most looking forward to in 2024?
2023 has been crazy. I got the chance to perform with Monumental Tour in amazing venues, such as Place Stanislas in Nancy, in front of 22k persons, La Tour Eiffel, for the anniversary of Gustave Eiffel passing, or Château de Blois, where I performed with Pedro Winter. Every venue is different & always a very emotional experience. I also played in Italy in Genova, and at Koko in London, and got the release of new music and my first compilation ‘Cycle’, so it’s been really great, altogether. Next year, there will be more Monumental Tour shows & I’m hoping to be able to release my first album.
Your Monumental Tour has seen you performing in various locations such as Italy and also Nancy in France. What has been the most exciting part of this journey?
To get the chance to perform in such amazing venues & the excitement to adapt every show for each of them is always a great adventure. But probably I’d say the most thrilling & rewarding thing was to play in front of big crowds again. Some of the Monumental Tour shows took place during Covid & without an audience. It’s great to be able to share the moments with the people again, and get the immersive communion vibe I always imagined for this.
Tell us about your new single ‘Change’ with Roland Clark – what inspired it and how did the collaboration come together?
‘Change’ is the unreleased single taken from the compilation ‘Cycle’. The instrumental evoked civilizations to me, and I wanted a humanist message on it, so I reached Roland Clark, who I always admired. He said yes, and then delivered beautiful lyrics & those great vocals, really strong I think, empowering. The song talks about the changes we need to go through as human beings to evolve & get better.
Why play live and not DJ? What draws you to it? Why do you prefer it?
I like both, but those past two years, I was more dedicated to the Monumental Tour, as it’s hard work for each show & takes a lot of time to prepare & put together.. But I’d love to play clubs a bit more, which I hope to do next year.
When did you first have the idea for your monumental shows and why do them?
The idea came while visiting monuments, which I often do. Suddenly I thought how wonderful it would be to turn some of them into a nightclub with futuristic visuals. When talking with people in charge, I also understood how much needed to be done to preserve those monuments, and the idea behind Monumental Tour was always to raise some money for the preservation as well. I also wanted to bring electronic music to a new audience.
What made you want to get out of playing in clubs?
I was influenced by the house music early days & Djs such as Laurent Garnier from the start, it was always a dream to me to spin & be able to make people travel into a musical journey during my sets.
What do you think of locations – what’s the aim with each one? Is there a certain thinking behind where you want to play beyond them being cool locations?
For Monumental Tour, there are some locations I approach directly, some that reached out to me, it depends. For the clubs, it’s different. Some I’m friends with their team, some are coming to me & I do my little investigation to see if the club is cool & what the vibe exactly is to prepare my set the best way possible.
And logistically what does it entail to get all your gear up there? How much prep do you do, how long are you there?
Usually, there are several weeks of preparation for each venue, especially for the mapping & light show. The technical side of things is hugely important in the making. And then concretely to set it up, it takes almost a week for each show. We arrive a few days before for the installation & we do several tests before the performance, in order to be sure not to have any technical issue.
What else have you got coming up for the new year?
The Monumental Tour at the Eiffel tour will be livestream on socials on December 27th at 9pm, that’s going to be very special for sure. I will also be shown on french Tv that same night. Before that, I have the new single & the compilation coming out on Dec 15th, so that’s the focus for now. But next year, I have several new shows in preparation, and hopefully my first album.