A recording and mixing studio in the Pigalle district, a Parisian musical sanctuary with its instrument shops and concert halls. But not just any: the door in the courtyard opened on the premises of Motorbass, the paradise on earth of the late Philippe Zdar, half of the electronic duo Cassius, who died accidentally in June 2019. Whose memory is celebrated at the end of January by an exhibition on the walls of the metro station.
This high place of the famous French touch survived its owner by the will of Zdar’s partner, the fashion designer Dyane de Sérigny. At the end of the morning, he thus hosts a master class of Mix With the Masters, a program with which the deceased was associated. The speaker is a subject of His Majesty, Joseph Mount, the man who almost single-handedly embodies the Metronomy group. The audience of professionals, exclusively male, attentively follows on screen and speakers the changes in notes produced by the movements of the mouse. On a metronomic tempo, a loop is built with digital sounds. A song of machines at the antipodes of Small World, Metronomy’s seventh album.
It’s the most attractive since The English Riviera, who in 2011 imposed the manner of Joseph Mount, a curly, bearded boy with the appearance of a geek rather than a rockstar. A subtle synthesis of pop melancholy and playful electro, this classic of the previous decade – as such reissued and increased by six unreleased tracks for its tenth anniversary – was partly conceived at Motorbass studios.
Chord progression
Mount, in a relationship with a Frenchwoman, lived at the time in an apartment in Barbès and was preparing to spin a lasting love affair with his host country. An irresistible single with its haunting organ motif, The Look, carved out a place in the playlists of hypermarkets and up to the final credits of Passenger lovers (2013), by Pedro Almodovar. To his Motorbass listeners, the author confides that he hesitated to publish this tube because of this “change of chords which [lui] remembered something”. “I was afraid of having copied but a friend assured me that no, he explains. If the property was for a chord progression, it would be impossible to make music because of the limitations in that area.. And a song is also the rhythm, the melody, the lyrics, the mix…” Mount identified the title he feared had plagiarized. He will obviously not reveal their identity, especially since the signatory did not notice anything.
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