Discover Varianoxe

Okay lads, back to business.

My last album, Interface, dates back to 2009. During the sixteen years separating it from Varianoxe, I lived a lot — perhaps more than before, to be honest. I settled down with the woman of my life. We travelled. We had two children. We moved twice. I worked hard, with passion, because I was lucky enough to have a fascinating job. I also wrote, because writing and imagining stories, developing worlds and characters, is for me as vital a need as music.

I never stopped music, though. I played a lot for pleasure, without any particular goal. I also started projects I never finished. Some may eventually see the light of day —why not ? But I no longer felt the urge to see things through, to give myself the necessary trouble required to complete an album, which demands a great deal of time, energy and meticulousness, even when one’s only ambition is to be an honest and sincere amateur.

Then, two years ago, I wanted to try a new approach, both technical and musical. After years of shying away from the all-digital world, I bought a new keyboard, Arturia’s KeyLab, and above all the virtual environment that brings it to life.

At first, I used presets through Analog Lab V, just to try it out. Then I purchased the full suite, which lets you tinker like mad with reproductions of legendary analog synthesizers : Yamaha CS-80 so dear to Vangelis, Juno-6, Jupiter-8, Solina (a recreation of the keyboard produced by Eminent and known as ARP Strings Ensemble), Mellotron, ARP 2600, Fairlight… A dizzying array of sounds, textures, and new possibilities that irresistibly made me want to get back into it for real.

With such a palette, it was inevitable that I would start by paying tribute to my first master. So many sounds summoned in me the spirit and letter of Jean-Michel Jarre that I simply had to seize them.

For that, I happened to have in my drawers an old unfinished project — precisely because I didn’t have the sounds or the technology needed to bring it to life. Its title, Varianoxe, speaks for itself : a blend of Equinoxe, of course, and my own Variations Synthétiques album, composed in 1997, where I had tried to play with Jarre’s style and make something personal out of it.

Modelled on the structure of Equinoxe (two large parts, each made of four continuous movements), but also on the way it is written, Varianoxe is therefore a highly playful record, oscillating between homage and the desire to draw from it an intimate musical expression.

It is a light-hearted, unpretentious project, where I tried to rediscover the raw and authentic pleasure of composing that guided me in my early days, while embracing the humble technical experience I now possess.

Since finishing it, I’ve been listening to it with pleasure, and with the deep satisfaction of having managed — sixteen years later — to bring a musical idea to completion.

I hope you share this pleasure and enjoy immersing yourself in this virtual odyssey at the edge of analog dreams…