What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.
I started to listen to electronic music in the early 1990s when the Rave appeared in France. The discovery of the electronic instruments and synthetic music was a real blast. I was young, less than 20 years old as it opened new horizons, i realized that music would never be the same. I started to buy records and DJing, totally influenced by the Italian DJ scene of that time, more precisely from the city of Firenze (Francesco Farfa, Miki, Roby J). For the first 15 years, it was all about listening and playing records, and go out in parties all around Europe. I started to work in recording studios in Paris and then I met Zdar and worked with him at the Motorbass Recording Studio where I learned the job of assistant mixer producer, working for great talent such as the raptures, cat power, cassius, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sebastien Tellier… Torb was born there in 2011.
Provide us with some info about your latest release…
There are 4 tracks, ambient, techno, house and progressive trance. I composed them 2 years ago, worked and reworked. bORDEL Records contacted me a few months ago asking me to make a record at home. I immediately accepted and sent them 10 pieces, they chose 8 and told me we’ll do 2 eps. This is the first one.
Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?
My main influence has always been the Italian dj Francesco Farfa and his friends Miki and Roby J, Sandro Vibot, Joy Kitikonti, Claudio Coccoluto… I have listened to them exclusively for more than 25 years. They are genius.
Today I am looking four more spiritual influence such as Gregorian chants and Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century.
Non music wise, the world of skateboarding from the mid eighties has been a great influence, mainly for the way of life, at the time it was a very marginal and non recognized sports, an independent and unknown little world, like a little family, i really enjoyed that, to be part of a movement that was different from everything else.. I guess that later on this has let me to enjoy a new world, rave parties & electronic music, as soon as discovered them.
In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?
I was born in 1975, I had the chance to live in the eighties as a teenager, which in my opinion has always been an underestimated decade in terms of creativity in music, movies, cartoons etc.. People always talk about the sixties, the seventies, but in my opinion the eighties is really the beginning of a new era, where techno music takes its roots. Even the cartoons from the 80’s that I watched when i was a kid were unbelievably rich and creative. I actually believe, that the cartoons that I watched when i was a kid (Captain Flam, Albator, Goldorak, Cobra Space Adventure, Les mysterieuses cites d’or, les mondes engloutis, Ulysse 31…) their music, their stories, let me naturally towards electronic music.
Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…
Albums: Sebastien Tellier – sexuality, Christophe – Paradis retrouvé, The Rapture – In The Grace Of Your Love.
Movies: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Interstellar, Gravity, Red Planet, Passengers, Sunshine, Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Resurrection, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, Contact, First Contact.
Books: The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End by Liu Cixin
Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?
These are really 2 different feelings. Studio is cool because we are warm comfortable and we have time to search for new sounds looking for new sensations. It is like a laboratory where you experiment sounds, and when you find the right combination, the one that provides a new sensation to your body, your soul and your mind, the kind of sensation that no words can explain, then you feel at your best, it is quite an enjoyable feeling.
When you perform live in front of a crowd, you are more in danger and fully exposed. Then, and this is not always happening, when the crowd is hooked by your music, and understand every bit of it, when it is almost anticipating the next sound as it is in total communion with you then this feeling reassure you about why you are doing this for so many years, and so many hours in the studio. This is the achievement of everything. Here again, words can’t hardly explain the intensity of this feeling.
Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?
One great memory, was at the wedding anniversary of my parents friends. I don’t know why I did that, but to be nice to them, I proposed to play a set live at their party. As you can imagine, during the whole party the guests were listening to old rock, disco an pop music, and of course only the most famous ones. When it was my turn to play live, in front all the machines that guests were looking at as if it was something coming from another planet, of course I was not sure at all that it was the right present to make to my parents friends and I wondered what i was doing here in the middle of people in their 50’s or 60’s..i was feeling embarrassed..but here i was and i could not go back, I had to play my music live. So i started to play and I don’t know how, but I hooked few of the guests as they started to dance, then others came, and in the end all the guests were dancing in front of me, and getting crazy and shouting when there was a break, and getting completely into my music.. they all thanks me at the end !!! I still can’t not believed what happened this day, all these guests in their 50’s and 60’s, dancing like a rave crowd in front of me, at the wedding anniversary of my parents friends ahhahaha.. i don’t know how i should feel, that was nice but also uncomfortable..I imagine them the day after wondering what happened at the party…
Another one that comes to my mind, is about my forth time playing live in a big festival in front of 5000 people. I was so stressed that Instead of taking on stage the usual water bottle, I decided to take a vodka bottle in order to « forget about the stress ». After half an hour, the bottle was almost empty, i don’t remember at all the last part of the set and how the party ended. Until the day after when the manager called me to say that the show was very cool and congratulated me. Lucky guy i was, I never did that again.
Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?
Dipendenza della stella because it is soft melancholic and rough at the same time evoking the feeling of bitter love.
Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?
Doing another ep with bORDEL Records, starting a new live showcase, and travelling around the world.
Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…
Will you do a vinyl copy of DOST EP?
I have always loved vinyl since I am a teenager, having more than 5000 of them, bought over the years. But today there is no way I pollute the planet more than what is already known as the greatest disaster created by human beings.
Indeed, Vinyl record is made of PVC PolyvinylChloride which is hazardous to us and environment as dioxin is created from the manufacture and incineration of PVC. Dioxin is one of the most deadliest of man-made poisons. Of course the vinyl production is not the biggest pollutants, but i guess that everyone has to bring its share to save the pant, I am in the music industry, so yeah, I will not produce a vinyl EP, as my love for the planet is coming first.
However, one hope is that more and more new start up companies are going green. In particular in the vinyl industry, a start up named GREEN VINYL RECORDS developped a process to create vinyl by respecting the environment. So yes, I would love to do an EP on vinyl, but that would be only on Green Vinyl.
Photo credits: Bruno Pellarin
Curated by: Christos Doukakis
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