Nicolas Godin Is Bach But This Time Without Air

  • Nicolas Godin Is Bach But This Time Without Air
    POSTED

     

    While his modesty may prevent him from admitting it Air’s Nicolas Godin is a genius. The French multi-instrumentalist is best known for his dreamy work his duo Air, but his latest project, a solo album titled Contrepoint, may be his most ambitious project to date.

    Inspired by the works of classical composer Bach, Godin has put together eight tracks that utilise the melodies of Bach in some way, managing to turn them into something that sounds contemporary and cinematic. It’s a sweeping, largely-instrumental LP that has slight Air-tinges but mostly forges a new, creative path for the ridiculously talented musician.

    Cool Accidents hasn’t exactly dabbled in much Bach in the past so we went straight to the source to find out a little more about the composer. Well, we couldn’t get Bach on the line so we had to settle for Godin. He took us through the inner-workings of his new LP, why he can’t do another Air album just yet and his favourite tour of all time which just happened to be in Australia.

    How does it feel sitting with the record for a year? Do your feelings towards it change at all?

    It’s a good test. One year after it’s finished I think it still sounds fresh so I’m really confident for the future. What I like when I make records is that you can listen to records a few years later. I don’t if it’s good or bad but it still sounds good to me one year after it’s finished.

    When did you start working on it?

    It’s been a very long process. I was not planning to make a record originally. I was not rushing the time. It was after when I came back from an Australian tour in 2007 or 2008. I went home and I started studying classical music. I went back to classical piano lessons again. And for three years I just played Bach music but I wasn’t trying to make a record I was just doing it for my personal experience. And then I recorded one track and then another one and then little by little I made the album. But I never sat down one morning and thought let’s make a record now.
     

    When did you decide to stem each song off a Bach song?

    In fact I just wanted to play the songs on piano and then at some point I realised I couldn’t play them well enough and some melodies I was looking at in the score I didn’t have the technique to play them the way I wanted to hear them. So i went to the studio and I started to record them with contemporary instruments like synths or guitars. I tried to play what I had in my head. That’s how the recording process started. Just because I was a limited pianist. I needed a recording studio to express what I felt when I was reading the original score. But when I used modern instruments to play the score it sounded very cheesy at times so I had to change things to make it accurate. That’s how the creative process took place, to change the original parts.

    You said that some of the songs feature quite a bit of Bach and then other songs not so much. Did you have any rules for how much Bach you included?

    Basically, each song had a different purpose. I had to choose the instruments and technique to answer to a different question everytime because there’s many things I was seeing in Bach music and I took these things separately and so for each song of the record I wanted to express the trance of the combination of the Bach melodies between them. So I used a sequencer, I used a machine because I wanted something mechanical with that human interpretation just to show the beauty of the pure Bach melodies in my own way. But once that was done I didn’t need to prove that anymore so I wanted to prove to the audience that all the pop music we know comes from Bach so I used all the instruments of pop music like piano from The Beatles’ Hey Jude. Each track I used instruments that would best serve my theory. Each song has a different theory about Bach music so I had to arrange them in a way that people would understand my theory in the best way possible.

    It’s a really interesting record to listen to because there are a lot of genres packed into it from cinematic stuff to pop stuff. Were you ever worried that you were doing too much at once?

    Yes. I think my next album will be minimalist because I put the maximum things in this recording. Now I want something light for the next one. It’s a detox. My next album will be called The Detox Album.

    Great you’ve got it all planned!

    I liked how you said you were going back to the past to renew your love for music. Can you explain that a bit more.

    This comes from a very simple idea that when I looked at the documents I read by Glenn Gould I was surprised that he was making music from the past but bringing something new into it. I thought that’s the kind of thing that suits me because I know some musicians and artists that are very talented and very original. They take the guitar and they do something completely new that doesn’t reference anything. I’m not that sort of person. I’m more the kind of person that can mix stuff that’s already existing and create something out of it. After a while with Air I felt like we were doing the same music all the time and I had to find a new way to make music. While I was watching this documentary about Glenn Gould I understood I could do something new with something from the past and that was a big reservation for me. That was the key for me to find the solution to my inspiration crisis.

    It’s a big sounding record in that it’s cinematic as are a lot of the Air records too. Are you inspired by the idea of cinema and soundtrack?

    Yeah. The funny part of it is that I did a tribute to Bach and suddenly I understood that it’s actually a tribute to all the soundtrack composers that I like. For a long time all the things that I knew about classical music came from soundtrack composers because I was watching TV and cinema a lot when I was a child. Soundtrack music was my first and biggest influence even when I started Air. And then I understood that all these great composers, everything was coming from the classical music because they were classically trained when they were young. People like John Williams, they know classical music by heart so everything that I knew about classical music I knew it through them. It’s funny because it sounds like a soundtrack album. I thought that’s logical because it’s the end of a logical process.

    When you’re listening to music for leisure is classical music the kind of stuff you’re listening to?

    I listen to mainly Bach music at home. Every few months I go and see classical music live in Paris.

    What differentiates your solo project from the Air material? What’s renewed your excitement?

    The difference is that I can go to the end of a process. When you’re in a band at some point you have to make compromises. On this one there’s no compromises because there’s a complete freedom. I never thought that I’d like it because I like the idea of being in a band but obviously I got into it and I really like it.

    What kind of things would you take from this solo process if you went into recording a new Air album?

    I think the ticket to music is that you don’t really know things. You have to feel if you’re doing the right thing or not. It’s very difficult to understand. I know bands when they start to make a career at some point they start to make less and less good albums. Right now with Air I’m ready to find a way to make albums that are as good as the ones in the past. I don’t really know how to do that but if we do it we’re going to have to work hard. Making another album is getting tricky when you’re a long time in a band.

    Moon Safari is 17 years old. Are you still able to go back and listen to it?

    I will tell you something. I never listened to any of my old record. When I go on tour I listen to the track live. It’s almost like looking at an old picture, it’s depressing.

    When you tour music are you the sort of person who eventually gets bored of playing the same songs over and over again?

    There is a human factor where it’s such a good sensation to be on stage and there’s the audience and the response from the crowd and it’s something unique in the world. It’s the best job ever. I think everyone would love to do that job and I have the chance to be able to do it so I would never give up that. But it’s true that after 15 years, it’s just one hour of your life at night. But the rest of the day you travel or you’re in a plane or a bus or a hotel room and you can feel your life is going away. I need a little break from that and I need to make a lot of music in my room and in my studio just to feel alive again. I need a refuel.

    With that in mind, how does it feel to go into a record without expectation?

    It’s a sensation I forgot and it’s so good to feel that again. I did some warm-up show with this album in Italy and I went onstage and nobody knew what to expect. With Air if there’s something going wrong then you can play a classic song and the show is back on track but for my music it was a very strange sensation to go onstage and play unknown music. But it’s interesting and it’s good.

    Any plans to come to Australia?

    You know what? I don’t say this to be nice but I swear to God Australia was my best memory of a tour.

    What was that?
    We did V Festival with Air in 2008 and some shows on our own. We were everywhere. It was magic. We were so far away from home but for three weeks it was the best time of my life. I can’t wait to go back there. But maybe I shouldn’t go back there because it’s such a previous memory.

     

    Interview conducted by the interns' Sam Murphy for Cool Accidents

     

    Nicolas Godin's Contrepoint is available now where all ambitious and beautiful records are sold | streamed.

     

     

    146231
Submitted by Site Factory admin on




 

While his modesty may prevent him from admitting it Air’s Nicolas Godin is a genius. The French multi-instrumentalist is best known for his dreamy work his duo Air, but his latest project, a solo album titled Contrepoint, may be his most ambitious project to date.



Inspired by the works of classical composer Bach, Godin has put together eight tracks that utilise the melodies of Bach in some way, managing to turn them into something that sounds contemporary and cinematic. It’s a sweeping, largely-instrumental LP that has slight Air-tinges but mostly forges a new, creative path for the ridiculously talented musician.



Cool Accidents hasn’t exactly dabbled in much Bach in the past so we went straight to the source to find out a little more about the composer. Well, we couldn’t get Bach on the line so we had to settle for Godin. He took us through the inner-workings of his new LP, why he can’t do another Air album just yet and his favourite tour of all time which just happened to be in Australia.



How does it feel sitting with the record for a year? Do your feelings towards it change at all?

It’s a good test. One year after it’s finished I think it still sounds fresh so I’m really confident for the future. What I like when I make records is that you can listen to records a few years later. I don’t if it’s good or bad but it still sounds good to me one year after it’s finished.



When did you start working on it?

It’s been a very long process. I was not planning to make a record originally. I was not rushing the time. It was after when I came back from an Australian tour in 2007 or 2008. I went home and I started studying classical music. I went back to classical piano lessons again. And for three years I just played Bach music but I wasn’t trying to make a record I was just doing it for my personal experience. And then I recorded one track and then another one and then little by little I made the album. But I never sat down one morning and thought let’s make a record now.

 







When did you decide to stem each song off a Bach song?

In fact I just wanted to play the songs on piano and then at some point I realised I couldn’t play them well enough and some melodies I was looking at in the score I didn’t have the technique to play them the way I wanted to hear them. So i went to the studio and I started to record them with contemporary instruments like synths or guitars. I tried to play what I had in my head. That’s how the recording process started. Just because I was a limited pianist. I needed a recording studio to express what I felt when I was reading the original score. But when I used modern instruments to play the score it sounded very cheesy at times so I had to change things to make it accurate. That’s how the creative process took place, to change the original parts.



You said that some of the songs feature quite a bit of Bach and then other songs not so much. Did you have any rules for how much Bach you included?

Basically, each song had a different purpose. I had to choose the instruments and technique to answer to a different question everytime because there’s many things I was seeing in Bach music and I took these things separately and so for each song of the record I wanted to express the trance of the combination of the Bach melodies between them. So I used a sequencer, I used a machine because I wanted something mechanical with that human interpretation just to show the beauty of the pure Bach melodies in my own way. But once that was done I didn’t need to prove that anymore so I wanted to prove to the audience that all the pop music we know comes from Bach so I used all the instruments of pop music like piano from The Beatles’ Hey Jude. Each track I used instruments that would best serve my theory. Each song has a different theory about Bach music so I had to arrange them in a way that people would understand my theory in the best way possible.



It’s a really interesting record to listen to because there are a lot of genres packed into it from cinematic stuff to pop stuff. Were you ever worried that you were doing too much at once?

Yes. I think my next album will be minimalist because I put the maximum things in this recording. Now I want something light for the next one. It’s a detox. My next album will be called The Detox Album.



Great you’ve got it all planned!



I liked how you said you were going back to the past to renew your love for music. Can you explain that a bit more.

This comes from a very simple idea that when I looked at the documents I read by Glenn Gould I was surprised that he was making music from the past but bringing something new into it. I thought that’s the kind of thing that suits me because I know some musicians and artists that are very talented and very original. They take the guitar and they do something completely new that doesn’t reference anything. I’m not that sort of person. I’m more the kind of person that can mix stuff that’s already existing and create something out of it. After a while with Air I felt like we were doing the same music all the time and I had to find a new way to make music. While I was watching this documentary about Glenn Gould I understood I could do something new with something from the past and that was a big reservation for me. That was the key for me to find the solution to my inspiration crisis.





It’s a big sounding record in that it’s cinematic as are a lot of the Air records too. Are you inspired by the idea of cinema and soundtrack?

Yeah. The funny part of it is that I did a tribute to Bach and suddenly I understood that it’s actually a tribute to all the soundtrack composers that I like. For a long time all the things that I knew about classical music came from soundtrack composers because I was watching TV and cinema a lot when I was a child. Soundtrack music was my first and biggest influence even when I started Air. And then I understood that all these great composers, everything was coming from the classical music because they were classically trained when they were young. People like John Williams, they know classical music by heart so everything that I knew about classical music I knew it through them. It’s funny because it sounds like a soundtrack album. I thought that’s logical because it’s the end of a logical process.



When you’re listening to music for leisure is classical music the kind of stuff you’re listening to?

I listen to mainly Bach music at home. Every few months I go and see classical music live in Paris.



What differentiates your solo project from the Air material? What’s renewed your excitement?

The difference is that I can go to the end of a process. When you’re in a band at some point you have to make compromises. On this one there’s no compromises because there’s a complete freedom. I never thought that I’d like it because I like the idea of being in a band but obviously I got into it and I really like it.





What kind of things would you take from this solo process if you went into recording a new Air album?

I think the ticket to music is that you don’t really know things. You have to feel if you’re doing the right thing or not. It’s very difficult to understand. I know bands when they start to make a career at some point they start to make less and less good albums. Right now with Air I’m ready to find a way to make albums that are as good as the ones in the past. I don’t really know how to do that but if we do it we’re going to have to work hard. Making another album is getting tricky when you’re a long time in a band.



Moon Safari is 17 years old. Are you still able to go back and listen to it?

I will tell you something. I never listened to any of my old record. When I go on tour I listen to the track live. It’s almost like looking at an old picture, it’s depressing.



When you tour music are you the sort of person who eventually gets bored of playing the same songs over and over again?

There is a human factor where it’s such a good sensation to be on stage and there’s the audience and the response from the crowd and it’s something unique in the world. It’s the best job ever. I think everyone would love to do that job and I have the chance to be able to do it so I would never give up that. But it’s true that after 15 years, it’s just one hour of your life at night. But the rest of the day you travel or you’re in a plane or a bus or a hotel room and you can feel your life is going away. I need a little break from that and I need to make a lot of music in my room and in my studio just to feel alive again. I need a refuel.



With that in mind, how does it feel to go into a record without expectation?

It’s a sensation I forgot and it’s so good to feel that again. I did some warm-up show with this album in Italy and I went onstage and nobody knew what to expect. With Air if there’s something going wrong then you can play a classic song and the show is back on track but for my music it was a very strange sensation to go onstage and play unknown music. But it’s interesting and it’s good.



Any plans to come to Australia?

You know what? I don’t say this to be nice but I swear to God Australia was my best memory of a tour.



What was that?

We did V Festival with Air in 2008 and some shows on our own. We were everywhere. It was magic. We were so far away from home but for three weeks it was the best time of my life. I can’t wait to go back there. But maybe I shouldn’t go back there because it’s such a previous memory.

 

Interview conducted by the interns' Sam Murphy for Cool Accidents

 

Nicolas Godin's Contrepoint is available now where all ambitious and beautiful records are sold | streamed.





 

 

Tags Tier 2
News id
75091
Blog Thumbnail
Slug URL
nicolas-godin-is-bach-but-this-time-without-air
Show in home news block?
Off

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

SIGN UP FOR OUR EMAILS

Be the first to know about new music, competitions, events and more.

terms

By submitting my information, I agree to receive personalized updates and marketing messages about Cool Accidents based on my information, interests, activities, website visits and device data and in accordance with the Privacy Policy. I understand that I can opt-out at any time by emailing privacypolicy@wmg.com.

Thank you!
x

Welcome to Cool Accidents' mailing list.

Customize your notifications for tour dates near your hometown, birthday wishes, or special discounts in our online store!

terms

By submitting my information, I agree to receive personalized updates and marketing messages about Cool Accidents based on my information, interests, activities, website visits and device data and in accordance with the Privacy Policy. In addition, if I have checked the box above, I agree to receive such updates and messages about similar artists, products and offers. I understand that I can opt-out from messages at any time by emailing privacypolicy@wmg.com.