Yann Tiersen

ĢO: I always start interviews with this question. As a musician and composer you inspire millions of people. What inspires you when you make music?

YT: I like sampling. Since the very beginning, I've really been into recording stuff and using it as the sound source. I don't believe in external inspiration whatsoever, so I try to focus and have fun with sounds. Really simple. When I just started, all I had was a four-track cassette, and I've always been recording myself and had this kind of home-studio approach.

ĢO: You find sounds and just start to build...

Yann Tiersen performs an electronic set at Ozora Festival in Hungary

YT: Yeah, more and more... I just don’t mess around with instruments anymore. I record, most of the time put it on tape, then feed the Octatrack with it.

ĢO: How did you get into music?

YT: I was born in 1970, and when I was really little, I think I went to an installation exhibition. I don't know what it was, but there were lots of oil paintings and an abstract sound installation with a violin. I thought the violin bow was a sword. As a child, I was impressed by that and said, "Oh, I want to make music and learn violin!" But it was just because I thought the bow was a sword. So the first time I had a proper small violin, I was so disappointed, realizing it was just a piece of wood. What is this? (laughs) So that was the starting point. After some time, I started playing piano, went to music school, but I wasn't really comfortable there, so I stopped when I was 12. Then I started playing electric guitar, had a band, and bought my first synth - a Juno 106. Then came samplers - an AKAI S-1000 and Korg DSS1.

ĢO: Do you consider yourself more of a composer or a performing artist?

YT: Not a composer... I just mess with sound. Since I studied in music school, I can write sheet music. Sometimes I would play in an orchestra, and that's good to be able to do. But that's not me; I need physical interaction with sound.

ĢO: What's your approach to creating scores for movies?

YT: I don't really do scores, actually. Usually, it's just my music being used. I did Goodbye Lenin - that was proper scoring work - and for documentaries as well. But most of the time, I find it really difficult and uninspiring to try to make music for images. For me, music is something completely free and cannot be an illustration. I think the link between images and music works better in the opposite direction. It makes sense to make images to music but not the other way around. At least for me - I'm really bad at it. Unfortunately, I have done it, and my music has been used in movies, but I'm not really into that.

ĢO: So rephrasing your words - a person should be able to enjoy music with eyes closed...

YT: Yeah. I think music can be linked to dance, physical concepts, meditation, or trance, but not as a sort of language or illustration. It's really weird, I think.

ĢO: One of my favorite pieces from you is "Monochrome." It's like if you're slightly depressed, it brings your depression...

YT: To another level! [laughs]

ĢO: I'm always blown away when I hear the piece. As a musician, you never stop creating something new, but retrospectively, what do you yourself consider the most significant statement from all your past work?

YT: I don't know. I always feel a bit uncomfortable with work I've already done. It's not that I don't like it; I just don't like to hear it because it's done. And please don't perceive it as fake modesty! If it's done, I like to move forward. So I like to see what I have in mind now... while actually, I don't have anything in mind because, like I said before, I tend to be quite simple, physical, and intuitive. I don't like the idea of finding a good idea. More and more, I just want to work with the texture of sound and melodies—but melodies that are not used as a goal in themselves but as part of the sound bank. At the moment, I like to improve my editing and tape-cutting skills and work on that more.

ĢO: Back to the basics of electronic music.

YT: Exactly. But that makes my process longer and longer. I record on tape, edit the tape, then put it in the sampler and mess with the sampler. Then I do granular synthesis, and I like that process—to try to avoid any inspiration or story. I don't like the idea of thinking, "Oh, that's a good idea." Who cares? It's just sounds. I like to focus on that and put away the inspirational side of it.

ĢO: But regarding the tape editing, I find it to be a tragedy of contemporary times, because we always experience a pressure of time and pressure to deliver tomorrow, which prevents us from really investing in the process. In the 1960s and 50s one could afford to spend months with sine wave oscillators and cutting tapes. That is not the case today, unfortunately - not for most of the people anyway.

YT: Yes, that's true...

ĢO: You have an amazing studio open for projects and musicians. Could you tell a bit more about it?

YT: This place is the Island Disco (Ouessant, Brittany, France). It was built during World War II or just before as a place to celebrate weddings and later became a disco. Someone bought it from the mainland and left it unused for 15 years. I always dreamt of having my studio here. One morning, a friend I was touring with told me it was for sale. So we bought it, destroyed everything, and created what it is now. I didn't want it to be private but open to everyone. Now, we have three studios: the live room, the control room upstairs, Studio B focused on electronic music with all my synths, and Studio C for me and my wife, Emily, to work when people are here. We want it to be a small hub where there's no money involved—just people playing, sharing, and collaborating.

ĢO: I totally believe that people did better than apes in evolution just because they could cooperate and share, so if someone wants to use the studio, should they call you? [laughs]

YT: We're building a website with a virtual studio tour and an application process to ensure it's not used for commercial projects.

When I bought the SSL [mixing console - ed.] I was thinking, it has been fed with music for decades... Imagine if the electricity, your desk and everything around has been fed with really bad music? Does it change something? Or not? Maybe? I don't think so. But I like the idea that you have to cure the desk and every channel for ages...

ĢO: Insert some positive drones overnight...

YT: Yes!

Photo from Yann’s set from the closing parade of Fêtes Maritimes de Brest 2024

ĢO: Going a little bit back into history. What do you think was your professional breakthrough as a musician? What brought you recognition?

YT: My third album, The Lighthouse. For me it was a shock. I have always been touring a lot. So when I started I had toy pianos and I was doing a regional tour in France with about 10 people in the venue. Nobody. And when my third album was released - within two weeks, I suddenly had more people coming to the show. It felt crazy. I think that was the Big Bang.

ĢO: When was that?

YT: I think it was 1996, maybe 1997. That was the time for the change in terms of recognition.

ĢO: What feels more rewarding to you - releasing an album or playing a live gig?

YT: I don't know. I've always been trying to not reproduce my albums on the stage or to tour before the actual album is released. But because of COVID I did release the last album and then spent two months working on a set for an electronic music festival here in Brest, so I did reshape the album completely because I didn't want to play the exact same material. I spent a whole month working on the live version for the tour to get cancelled. My next live gig was at Superbooth in September, so then I spent the whole summer reshaping and reprogramming everything for a smaller modular setup. And actually this led to the new album that we will release in June. It is based on the previous record, but you can't recognize the music because I did lots of processing and sampling, so it became another album for the live show.

ĢO: Your earlier albums from the 90s to 2000s have quite a few acoustic instruments present, were those live musicians or samples?

YT: I was using samples of me playing violin.

ĢO: So you still do play violin?

YT: When I was a teenager and started doing my own music I was spending days and days and days sampling vinyl records. I rejected all acoustic instruments. My mother was really proud of me for playing violin and she wanted me to play all the time, so when I was 12 I took my violin and I smashed it (laughing - ed.) So after that I didn't touch an acoustic instrument until I was 17. I started sampling lots of strings and orchestras - I don't like sound banks. I like searching for material to sample, going through my record collection but that became too time consuming and not constructive at all. So at one point I thought Okay, I can just stop being nuts and sample myself. Then I thought Maybe it's time to just use a microphone. And that's what I did and how I went back to acoustic music for a while. And then after the process I gradually changed back to electronic music, again...

Yann Tiersen live 2007

ĢO: A friend of mine is a trumpet teacher and 5-6 years ago I took trumpet lessons. It was fun, but very, very difficult to learn a new instrument at this age - simply because your muscle memory is not there anymore. So he then told me a story of his friend who studied piano in the Academy of Music. When the graduation exam came, the friend sat next to the piano, smashed the cover of it and said Fuck you and left. That's how exhausted he was from classical training.

YT: I understand that [laughing - ed.]

ĢO: On synthesizers. Are there any favorites for you?

YT: SH-101, Arp 2600. I still have an intimate relationship with my Juno 6. I also like the basics like Jen SX1000, SX2000. Those I find to be really, really good.

ĢO: I would like to point out that those are real instruments without any presets so you actually have to know how to play.

YT: Yeah, I don't like presets. However when I was young I was a bit afraid of doing things wrong - which of course is completely stupid. I had this complex when standing in front of synths, thinking Oh, I'm not able to use it or I don't know how to access all the capabilities and so on. But in reality - who cares?

ĢO: It's quite a unique studio here with tape reel to reel recorders. Tell me a bit more about that and the analog recording stuff. [The interview takes place in Tiersen's studio with his modular systems - ed.]

YT: I have the 16 track here and I got the 24 inch Studer and a quarter inch Studer upstairs as well. I love tapes. I like that nowadays we can use everything. We have a bit more distance to the equipment. For instance I love to use digital stuff on tape and then resample it. I am working hard to get rid of using computers - it's not that I don't like the workflow, it's just that you get addicted to it. It's the easy way to get lost in the process. I found it so liberating to stop using it. In the creative process I try to focus on tape and just being free. When playing live I really like listening to the music and not having a screen in front of me. Sometimes I use a computer to prepare the sample for it to be more clean, before feeding them in the Octatrack or Morphagene or whatever and then I record on tape. Sometimes I use a computer to mix - just for convenience.

ĢO: So you want the creative freedom and choice of media - you can use a computer, or use a tape. In the 1960s to 80s you didn't have that, you had to use tape.

YT: Yeah it's a good tool but sometimes it's not that good. Some stuff is better on digital, e.g. a good converter. Sometimes I don't use tape - for whatever reasons, or even for the mix. But most of the time I do choose tape.

Photo from concert in Milan 2022

ĢO: What role does modular synthesizers play in your creative process?

YT: At first I just sampled stuff, the Octatrack is the centrepiece and there is actually the patch with drones. It was completely crazy because it was the beginning of the war (Russian invasion in Ukraine – ed.) and I was working on that. And you can really hear it. It really, really became a component. A thing with electronic music, and modular synthesis in particular is that there is something magical and really natural. Actually I think acoustic instruments are too much of a man's craftsmanship in a way that you have to learn a lot. It's not as with electricity - magical, when strangely you can touch the randomness of nature. Of course it's technology and there is lots of human involvement to build it, but it somehow stayed free and wider, like a link to something that can't really be mastered. I love that.

We're interested in turning knobs instead of playing an actual instrument, especially the piano, for instance. And it's funny because I saw the documentary Coda, about Ryuichi Sakamoto (Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda, 2017 - ed.) and he pointed out something really good. He sampled a piano (you can hear it on Sakamoto's track ZURE - ed.) that was destroyed by a tsunami in Fukushima. He said that actually this piano was returning to its natural shape. He was talking about all the insane force and strength, the human wish to constrict with chords and so on, which is completely artificial and horrible in a way. It's like a torture on a piece of wood. This piano was not destroyed - actually, it's the opposite, isn't it? I like this idea.

ĢO: While Ryuichi himself uses the piano very, very gently, touching a few keys [laughing - ed.] But I must admit, he really is a master of what he does.

Talking about collaborations with other artists and musicians, can you name some that have been particularly inspiring or rewarding for you?

YT: I like the way we work with Gareth Jones who is mixing my albums - because we know each other very well. The collaboration concept is a part of the studio as well - we just haven't started yet. To collaborate, to have someone come in here, to do music together and see what happens. There are lots of people that I like to work with. I can't wait to start collaborations here.

ĢO: So the studio will reveal its true potential...

If you had a chance to have an instrument which is not made yet, do you have something in mind that's really missing?

YT: All the tough questions for me [laughing - ed.]

I love the interface of the Therevox - kind of type with the expression. So I guess it would be this kind of instrument, more of a controller actually, with lots of CV outputs and a kind of expression keys to control everything, with a vibrating keyboard.

ĢO: Any future plans, apart from really starting the studio?

YT: Touring. The next week or two I start in Mexico, then the US and Europe. So I will tour and then I will work on the next tour. Actually, I want to do two things: use a lot of tape-cutting techniques, and perhaps focus more on recording acoustic material. And perhaps focus more on actually recording some acoustic stuff. And I want to record field recordings and instead of tuning in 12-TET (12 tone equal temperament - the tuning system that's been used by the majority of musicians for the past few centuries - ed.), but perhaps using microtonality. To mess around with polyphony and tuning of every natural sound to see what they can do.

Yann on his 2022 tour in Mexico City

ĢO: This is a very favourable place for field recordings because noise pollution here on the island is not present.

YT: That's true. It's amazing - when we go to the mainland, it's crazy how engines are everywhere, even in remote places in England, or the countryside. You hear cars from a distance - all the time, and here we don't have that. But we have wind pollution - the wind is always there. So it's not a paradise for recording. But you get white noise and I love that.

ĢO: Where for you, lies the beauty of tape cutting technique? I believe, nowadays there are very few people that actually use it and have tried it.

YT: I'm just curious. I've always had a fantasy of cutting, messing with tapes and I have never done it in the past so I'm learning. And it's exciting because it's new. And sometimes I cut the vocals into pieces and put it in a reel and then just re-stick everything but in random order. I love that - it's really simple, but works so well. And you have an accident! It's a little silly because it takes ages to do it, but it's so great.

ĢO: You have spent 40 years in music. What would you advise to younger musicians, or new musicians who are now just starting in music, particularly electronic music?

YT: I think that we are living in a really, really amazing era of music. I think now there's tons of really good things, I think it's almost as good and inspiring as the 60s. I think now again we have lots of amazing things flourishing. So I don't have any advice, because I think people already are creating really good music. Also I guess in the 80s and 90s everybody was going into digital and discovering computers - how fast and great it can be. But now we kind of know that for a long time already - especially young people. So they can use that, but they can also discover real gear and forget the computer - that's amazing.

ĢO: I guess, the chance of diversity in music and actually any field of life nowadays is unprecedented. And we all can do whatever.

YT: Yes. But I think that people now are focused in a certain way as well, because it can be really risky when you can do everything, you do nothing. Because you're lost.

ĢO: At least you have the opportunity. In the 70s you had to pay thousands of dollars to go to a studio.

YT: For sure. And now you can do amazing things on the phone.

ĢO: Getting back to the question from earlier, regarding collaborating with anyone from the past or present...

YT: We had this conversation with Daniel Miller, and he was saying that it was so amazing to discover Kraftwerk and the beginnings of electronic music. I guess I would have loved to be a part of that. John Cage for example... Meet those people and discover together the tape and what you can do with it. And just learn from them. But I do think now is a really exciting period as well.

ĢO: I think that the difference back then was that they had to have courage to change something. In our culture now everybody is accepted and invited to blend in. You do not need much courage to make a statement.

YT: There is no revolutionary approach.

ĢO: Ondrei Merta from Bastl Instruments who held a workshop in our Kontaktor festival proposed an interesting thought experiment - if you played your music to a person 20 years ago, would it completely blow their mind off? If we rewind time and say, play rock and roll to a person from the 1930s it would definitely blow their mind off. Nowadays, if you play any music, which is produced today to a person from the 2000s - it wouldn't because there is no revolutionary statement. Us as musicians or manufacturers need to encourage people to make those statements.

YT: Yeah, that's true.