Cassius are Blowing up Channelside!
1. It's been three years since your last album 1999, what have you been doing aside from DJing?
B - "We've been writing and recording the new album in Paris, which has taken us maybe two years to put together."
P - "We're very lazy."
2. 1999 sounded like a DJ's album, this one is more of a musician's set, is that a fair assessment?
P - "We've always worked with samples, particularly as a starting point but where as last time they were maybe the key to a song, this time we added a lot more music, sometimes you can't even hear the original inspiration anymore. I suppose it has evolved a lot more."
B - "Yes we layered a lot of things on Au Reve. Except for the voices, and the good guitar playing, it was all us in the studio."
3. You seem to embrace a lot of varied styles on the album from Chicago house and disco through to Kraftwerk style electronica, soul and more ambient stuff, how hard was it to make it all work together?
B - "We just do our thing. It was never a conscious decision to make this kind of song or that kind of song. Fortunately we are DJs and if something sounds and feels right then we know to keep it, you have to trust your judgement, but yes we've mixed a lot more sounds and maybe styles this time."
4. It wasn't all that long ago that French music had a bad reputation in this country with maybe just Vanessa Paradis and Jean Michel Jarre being France's main exports, how did that all change do you think?
P - "Yes I know, not just in England but all over the world I think."
B - "It was many things, but firstly it was all the dance records coming in from Detroit and Chicago that had the kids thinking, 'I can do this.' You know France and Paris in particular has a big, big music scene now, all started from this bedroom DJ culture. That's how we started, so did Daft Punk and Air etc."
5. Do you mind being compared with Daft Punk and all the other crop of French artists?
B - "No, that's why things have probably been so good at home. You know the guys from Daft Punk started it, they would put something out in the clubs, then Motorbass (P and Etienne De Crecy's moniker) would try and better it, it's healthy competition. That's how we came to be friends."
6. Hip hop was your way into the industry, and yet there's very few signs of it on the new album?
P - "Well we do have Ghostface (Killah) on the album so it's there, but hip hop isn't so much what Cassius is about."
B - "I did a lot of hip hop, especially with Solar (MC Solar) and La Funk Mob, but together we bring many different things so you cannot expect us to just make a hip hop record." |
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