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Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’!
Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases!
Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme!
Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works.
Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain!
Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September!
NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases!
Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup!
Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast!
Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music!
SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023!
The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023!
NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music!
Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project
The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22!
A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden
Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma
Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino
New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik!
PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records!
Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters!
N-Kore talks Jean-Michel Jarre, unfinished tracks and fatherhood!
Celebrating International Women’s Day and Ten Years of Psy-Sisters with Amaluna
A Catch Up with John Phantasm ahead of his upcoming set at the Tribal Village 4 Day Outdoor Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022!
'The Maestro that is Tristan talks barn owls, Shazamming and keeping it Psychedelic ahead of his upcoming performance at the Tribal Village 4 Day Event in Kent 6-9 May 2022!
DJ talk with Psyrenzo ahead of his debut set at Tribal Village, the Steelyard this Friday 14th January 2022!
TENZO aka Overdrive talks freely about launching his new act which will be showcased at Tribal Village, Steelyard on 14 January 2022!
A long overdue catch up with JourneyOM ahead of his next Tribal Village party this Friday 14th January 2022 at the Steelyard, London!
Goa based party animal and artist extraordinaire Nirmal talks punk concerts, metal sculptures, flying and rippin' it up on a High Tide!
DJ Wired talks to us about the Rise of the Hope and parties, ahead of his upcoming set at Tribal Village on 14th January 2022!

Talamasca ‘Make Some Noise’!

Reported by Psylicious / Submitted 21-11-11 07:29

Paris based producer Cedric Dassulle better know as Talamasca is no stranger to the psychedelic trance music scene, conjuring up his audio trickery time and time again is there any wonder why so many still to this day call him the ‘Maestro’ in so many countries? It has been 3 years since Talamasca was last featured here on Harderfaster, in that time two albums and one EP have been produced and released with his latest release ‘Make Some Noise’ released earlier this summer. With a hectic gig and touring schedule taking him to all parts of the World to unleash his audio magic onto the many dance floors, I managed to catch up with Cedric to find out a lot more of what he has been doing since his last feature here on Harderfaster.

Cedric it is great to catch up with you, how has your year been so far?

Well, compared to many of my friends I can't complain as I am still playing every week . . . but it is true that it has been a bit harder than previous years, mostly because there have been a lot of cancellations of events this year. This was regarding the bookings, regarding the music and I had a hard year because of the acoustics in my studio, I guess this is the reason why I produced much less tracks this year than in the past . . . but I just solved a big part of my problem and my motivation came back 100% and to finish, regarding my "normal" life, everything is more than perfect. I am a proud and happy father so really nothing to complain about.

You were last featured here 3 years ago, so just very quickly to re-cap for the benefit of newer readers and fans, how and where did it all begin for you?

The "REAL" beginning you mean? Mmmm, I’ll try to make it short. I’m originally a classical piano player mixed with a stupid punk teenager. I kept some of my two personalities to mix them in one as a grown up adult, but in that time, which is now 20 years ago, I was a gabber DJ, mixing 3 vinyls together in hard core parties, then I discovered trance in 1993, fell in love with this genre, became resident DJ of the Rex club in Paris in 1994 as "DJ Lestat", which gave me the opportunity to meet most of my idols of that time. Then composed my first Talamasca track in 1995 with two other friends, who were more my teachers than my partners to be honest and then, I continued by myself from 1997 and I am still here. This is the shortest way to resume it.



Talamasca has taken you around the World with countless gigs and tours, including your debut set in Poland this year. From your gigs so far this year, what have been your highlights?
I am always happy when I go for the first time somewhere. Unfortunately (or fortunately, it depends on your point of view) its becoming rarer and rarer. Now if I had to do a kind of top 3 of my best party memories then, and not necessary in the good order, I would say that there was recently a gig I played at in Belem, in the Amazonian forest, 8000 people in the jungle - Wooow! These kind of parties remind me why I love this job so much! I can't forget a wonderful party, few years ago in Japan, in an amusement park with roller coasters inside, massive! but I can't compare those two parties with some others like the Sinai Desert in Israel, some cruise boats from Sweden to Finland, or from Israel to Cyprus, massive 30000 people parties in Brazil, so hard to rank them all but yeah, I'm a lucky guy and I know it. Big grin

Inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach, 2010 saw the release of your digital EP ‘Back to Bach’, how has this release differed to past releases and are all your future releases going to be released via digital platforms?

Well, about 'Back to Bach', I actually haven't took anything from Bach, except maybe the musical theory of his climbing chords, except that HE was doing it with arpeggios and not chords. Chords did not even exist in the classical music of that time. It was more a superposition of notes from both hands that would make a two notes chord, but not exactly a 'chord'. But I love Bach, and I wanted people to understand from the title that it was not a regular trance track. My goal was clearly to be more classical as usual and despite the fact that I know that it is way too much melodic for some people (people who, for any obscure reason, claim that they love trance music, but hate melodies, sorry for this "out of subject" note, but sometimes I write too fast and prefer to forget the delete button) I am still very proud of this track. Notice the fact that a good part of this track is not mixable, probably because my melodies goes on 6/12/24/48 beats instead of the regular 4/8/16/32 beats. It might be Chinese for some of you, but this is basically what makes this track so special.

About CD and digital. I am really thinking to close my label, Mind control records, because I don't have enough time to work by myself on digital promotion. I mostly use my Facebook fan page but its far from being enough and as a CD label it isn't worth it any more. I have always been OK to not make money as long as I was free to release new French artists, but to lose some was not part of the plan, but it doesn't mean I will not release CDs any more, just not with my own label. I really prefer to focus on my music. I know I made much less tracks because I was busy with the label, sometimes you need to choose. I am a musician. Not a PR, and even less a business man.



‘Make Some Noise’, your latest album release was released earlier this summer. What was your inspiration behind this release and how has your sound evolved from the past to where it is now?

It is actually a good question, because this album is different from the other ones. In this one I wanted to touch my "extremes". I mean that I wanted in this album to put my hardest track ever, my most melodic one ever, my less melodic, my deepest, my most commercial, my most beautiful etc, doing more of a melting pot of Talamasca styles than a concept album. So I know that only few people will love ALL the tracks of this album, as they are very different from an extreme to another but it is a very little range of extremes. As it is anyway Talamasca style don't expect any tech-house or prog house under my Talamasca name, Talamasca was, is and will remain psy trance as long as it will be. I don't want to confuse people and mix genre in my album like some others did, successfully or not.

I know what I am booked for with Talamasca. About the inspiration of this album, I always claimed that I’ve been inspired all my life by Jean-Michel Jarre, it has never been as real as for most of this album, except two tracks (including one with Mesmerizer, a new French project from Paris) who are clearly made to make a contrast with the rest of my live in parties and kick a bit harder than usual.

What will be your goals for the rest of 2011 and beyond? Will we ever see a Talamasca magic show combined with your live sets?

Hehe, I see you are well informed. I do magic for almost 15 years now, but as an amateur. Even if I believe that I am quite talented for this, but like anything else, to become a pro takes a lot of time and my time is already fully split between my family and my music. This doesn’t mean I don't keep the idea in mind, but you, specially you as English people, who have my magic "idol" in your country, as the one I get my inspiration from in this "magic" world is Derren Brown, should know that "magic" means a lot of different things. Illusion and Mentalism are two different things.

I thought of both of them but then I have to deal with different problems. If it was that easy, others would have done it before me. Illusion because to design a stage and a lightshow exactly as we would need it to make a GOOD magic show is almost impossible in a party. Second reason, it cost a looooooooooot of money! So many heavy equipment, I can't ask any promoter to pay for this, maybe Daft Punk or David Guetta can butI can't. About mentalism . . . Hmmm, I am still waiting for Derren Brown to contact me to make some experiment in a London based party one of these days, haha . . . that would be great and few things are really possible, maybe a "hypnotic" album in the not so far future, who knows.



You recently became part of the Psylicious Management roster, whom now look after your UK, USA & Canada bookings. One of your merits is your open door policy when it comes to working with the parties and festivals who want to book you, making it cost effective for all concerned. What are your thoughts with this?

Listen, I’m a DJ. OK I agree, but it doesn’t mean I don't know how to think well lol. How stupid would I be to not understand that if the promoter doesn't make money, I will not come back! This means many things!

First I have to play well to bring people, of course - but also that my "fee" must fit the market. I can understand easily that a 25000 people party in brazil with sponsors and a 1000 people party in Macedonia with a 3 Euros entrance can not be compared. So when I meet some people who are doing good work in those countries, for many years, I don't have any problem to give them my trust and let them be my agent there. My goal 20 years ago was to play for everybody, everywhere. This has not changed at all.

Your question remind me a story. I used to play a lot in Australia and suddenly I stopped going there, I couldn’t t understand why. After 2 or 3 years, I contacted some organisers there who explained that they believed I was asking 4 times more than my normal fee, just because one day I trusted an agent there who completely burned my name by asking for so much money. From this day, I work only with people that I completely trust, based on some other DJs discussions, I’ve decided to work with Psylicious to avoid any problem like this one explained. And to finish, I am still ok with Mathematics. 6 x half price is much better than 1x normal price. Agencies can organise tours. I can't. Again; I am the musician.



For the readers that like ‘studio porn’ what equipment can we find in your studio and what is your favourite piece of hardware?

I recently unplugged most of my things. I used to work with a Toft mixer, an Eventide H8000, a Nordlead analog machines. But I am now selling them to focus on Audio. So I kept my virus TI, my voyager Moog and the rest of my synths and effects are VST plugins. I use Cubase as a sequencer but I am now learning Ableton Live and beginning to really love it.

Away from the hectic regime of producing and touring around the World you are a devoted family man. What are your favourite pastimes?

Beside my wife, my kids, my bookings, my studio, and my magic you mean? Hmmm . . . not that much except that I love to read novels and I am thinking about writing one myself. I have few book ideas in mind, but I think that it would logically begin by a first book about a DJ who travel all around the world, who meet everywhere super nice people, and who has a lot of funny adventures everywhere he goes, but don't worry, I’ll change all the names Smile

Cedric it has been great to catch up with you, many thanks. Before we close is there any Talamasca words of wisdom you would like to expose?

Always remember you are unique! Just like anyone else.... Wink

Facebook Fan Page Here

Psylicious Management Here



Images courtesy of Psylicious Management & Cedric Dassulle. Not to be reproduced without permission.
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Other Features By Psylicious:
Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino
Initiating a ‘Digital Domain’ with Savage Circuit
Breaking into your Unconscious Mind(s)
Expanding Your Senses with Odo7
Into the Sunrise with Cosmosis
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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