Agoria Interview
Sébastien Devaud a.k.a. Agoria has been at the forefront of the European Electronic music scene for over two decades. With the release of his new album Impermanence and Nuits-Sonores Festival this summer, the Frenchman from Lyon has a very busy year ahead.
Hey, hows it going?
Yeah really good.
Is this your first time in the UK?
No, I’ve been here lots of times. In a way, I’m a bit of a baby at Fabric because Fabric is the first club to invite me to play in England, I think 7 or 8 years ago when I released a Techno ecstatic track with a big break. The track was called La 11è Marche and from that point, I was a regular guest at Fabric. I like London. There are a lot of good parties here because the audience are really well educated with the media, magazines and radios. So it’s always fun to play because we can go deeper in with our music. We have a good festival called Nuits-Sonores Festival which I created 7 or 8 years ago. We started modestly with 10,000 people in the first edition and the last one was about 70,000. It’s a really good festival with Indie bands to Electronic artists to Dubstep to Techno House.
Would you say that’s the best French music Festival?
I can’t comment on that because I’m too much involved in the festival.
Where did it all begin for you Sebastian? What were your influences as a child and could you tell us about your link with Jeff Mills?
Well my influences aren’t a secret. They are from Detroit. When I was 12 years old, I bought my first record called Inner City Good Life. It was a major track in the country and was on all the mainstream radios, so I had a chance to listen to this tune. I didn’t know what it was but I liked it. My father was a big collector of records and so it was my first step. At that point, I didn’t know it was from Detroit but later I realised. Jeff Mills is also from Detroit and he was one of the first DJ’s where I was speechless. He was playing with three turntables, drum machines and effects and he was the first DJ to do this. Now, everyone is doing this but with computers but he was doing it analogue. He was moving like a tiger and was very precise. I was looking on as a little kid with amazement. I think now everybody releases too much music. I think one of the key things with us is not to release too much, looking for rarity and to think a bit more before we release any music. So many songs are released every week and nobody really takes care and pays attention. I think it’s better to take time and to select the best songs in the last six months. Maybe I would put them together because even if I had just released an album, maybe the concept of the album is a little bit dated now. I don’t think it is bad or good, it’s just the simple evolution of things. I really like the concept of an album, I like to create a beginning and end rather than a collection of singles.
You’ve had two albums out, one in 2006 and the other in 2008. Your new album Impermenence is very different. It’s one of those that grows on you. Can you tell us a bit more about what the concept was?
For me, you’re both right and wrong. Your right because it’s different from my other records, it’s not totally Dance music. But I guess it’s the continuity because the first two albums, if they were quite electing, they were still influenced by Techno with a lot of guest vocalists. With this one, I was trying to do what I didn’t do in the first two. In this album, I think I managed to make the story from the first song to the last song good and I hope the listener will really listen to it in the right way. There are some guest vocalists on there too, but it’s quite hard because it has the feel of a home album. But in fact, I’m playing so many tracks from this album in my set. I’m really happy that the result is fine and you can listen to it at home and I’m really happy to play a lot of these tracks in my DJ set because this is what I am doing and this is what I am about. I done the track quite easily and it all moulds together. I am really lucky to have fallen deeply in love and I think that is what has given me the energy to make the track. Love is the main influence on this record.
Are you living in France at the moment?
Yeah I still live in my home town Lyon, where the festival is played. I like to stay there because I am travelling so much and I think it is important to be home with your family and friends. It’s quite lonely to make music nowadays. You’re always in the studio, it’s not like in an office where you are with a lot of people. It’s really lonely work and there are usually only one or two people who travelling with you.
Can you tell us a little bit about how you play your music?
At the moment, I’m really thinking about moving to digital because I think I am the last one not using a computer. I think I am still playing records and CD’s but it’s good because a lot of records and tracks are only released on vinyl, so I feel a little bit happier about it and that I can listen to them and no-one else can’t. In a way it’s really tough sometimes because the sound system in the club now is not really well compressed for the vinyl’s. The clubs are built now for computers. Vinyl has a warm sound, the CD’s sound is more tight and straight. You can’t put more bass on a vinyl because it’s too much and it’s difficult to play with, because of the sound problem I will be forced to move into digital soon.
What is your lifetime achievement?
I’m really involved with my own label at the moment. I’m not sure if it’s really a big achievement but I’m defending the idea of a collective project so when I release an album and all the money we get from that release, we can reinvest it into the label to produce other artists. I like this thing about helping newcomers. I try to release artists when they are just starting because I remember the first time I released my records and people were going, your music is not the best at the moment, I listened my first record recently and it’s not that good. But the record label put trust in me and they wanted to help. I think it is my turn to do this, to focus on some new artists.
Agoria’s new album Impermanence is out now
