LIT – Alternative Blogzine

Hello Gilles! Many thanks for taking your time to answer our questions. As you may not known to all of our readers / listeners, please introduce yourself a bit.

Gilles: My name is Gilles Rossire. I’m French, living in Paris. I’ve created the Oil 10 project in 1998. My first album was called In/out, it was a quite experimental music. RetroFuture is the seventh album. My first job is special make-up effects for cinema. Now music is more important in my life.

Please, describe your music with your own words.

Gilles: I think I try to make a kind of “timeless” music. I like the idea that it can be difficult to guess when my music was composed. I’ve avoided using already existing samples until Beyond. I want to keep a very analogic atmosphere.The other main idea is that Oil 10 must develop in its shape. I would be very afraid of being obliged to compose the same kind of music.
Each album was conceived as a chapter which was to be related to the precedent and to bring the following. “In/Out” was a rather dark, experimental album. However it already contained two rather dancefloor titles. With the following albums, I first developed rhythmics then melodies. From the beginning, my obsession is to explore different music worlds, make surprises. I don’t want to be lock in one music style and compose same music over and over.

When did you start making music and what was the trigger for it?

Gilles: My very first electronic experience as a listener was a track from Tangerine Dream’s “Rubycon” used for a French TV show and the soundtrack of “Forbidden Planet” movie. I really didn’t understand how this kind of music could be created. After that, I discovered Kraftwerk. Then the British new wave and eletropop appeared with all the mythic bands like Depeche Mode or OMD. Then Techno explosed and mixed all influences in many styles.  So I’ve always been influenced by both pure experimental and light electropop, weird noises, melodies and club beats. As soon as I had a job, I bought a Roland SH101 synthesizer and since then, I’ve never stopped composing in many different styles.

What does the name „Oil10“ stand for?

Gilles: There is no particular meaning. When I composed the first album, I didn’t know if it was a first chapter or just one shot. The entire project was called Oil 10 even the album itself had no title. I wanted to have an abstract name with letters and numbers, and with a very graphic look. But in the end, Noise Museum and I decided to call it In/Out. So Oil 10 became name of the project.

Have you been musically active before the foundation of OIL10 in 1998? If yes, in which bands or projects?

Gilles: I’ve never stopped composing during ten years before Oil 10 but I had not much freetime to make a coherent project. In 1993 a four tracks vinyl was released in Belgium at ARS. It was quite dancefloor project called “Lust in Space”. Then I looked for a more original direction. I wanted to find my own style. I composed nine or ten tracks for Remote I sent to few labels and magazines. When one of these tracks was released on Future Music Magazine I was already working on Oil 10. Retrospectively I see Remote like a kind of “womb” for Oil 10.

As I have learned on your website, you are influenced by pioneers of electronic popmusic like „kraftwerk“, 80s synthpop alike „depeche mode“ but also contemporary artists like „vitalic“, „lfo“ of electroclash bands likle „fisherspooner“ or „ladytron“. How do you incorporate all these influences in the music of OIL10?

Gilles: Well, I think my musical tastes are themselves very eclectic. During the composition of an album, I almost never listen to electro but rather to the very orchestral soundtracks or many pop songs. I never felt attached to a movement, a musical kind more than another. I saw the emergence of disco music, new wave, techno and its multiple alternatives, and I like many different things in many styles. Add to this a passion for cinema and that gives a large mix. It isn’t a surprise that is found in my music. That’s the reason why I’ve asserted myself a few rules from the very beginning, so that this eclecticism hasn’t transformed into chaos !
When I’m starting a new track I generally have an idea of the atmosphere I’d like to obtain. Sometimes I even have an idea of its place on the future album. But when I’m composing a new album, I try not to listen too often to electronic music. I prefer songs, classical music, orchestral soundtracks.

Did you start from the very beginning to produce own songs or did you begin to work on remixes or cover-songs?

Gilles: I’ve always produce my own songs. Each time I tried to work on a cover, it was not a good job : if I like a song the original is always best than my version. So I’ve listen and tried to understand how music works when I listen other tracks. It’s enough.

How does an OIL10-song come to life? Do you work on hardware or software?

Gilles: The ways change between tracks and albums. I never have much hardware of software so almost all tracks begin on my old friend SH101.
Sometime the core of the track is often quickly found, but sometime it can be harder on many months. Anyway,  I always spend a lot of time to construct and mix them.
For some tracks from in/out I tape recorded endless tunings and settings of my SH101, without even knowing where it’ll lead me to. It was a sort of a blind process allowing me to fulfill my soundbank. When it’s done, I chose a couple of particular short routines or blips and then cut, filtered, denoised, changed pitch or whatsoever before sampling this material. From then on, I could sequence my beeps, all the delicate work of choosing the ones that would fit together or, on the contrary, counterpoint with each other in a dynamic way.
I’ve tried to change many things in my composition way for each album. For the first time I used samples of atmospheres or beatboxes on Beyond. I’ve introduced some trip hop moods Sometime I began with harmony, sometime with rhythm or melody I sing in the street. Everything is possible.  Hardware of software is just a detail, a tool. The intention is more important.

I have never noticed vocals, except of a few vocal samples. Did you ever think of recording own vocal takes for your songs?

Gilles: In my two first albums, there is no vocal at all. They were appeared on Links. Vocals are just another instrument for me. Words are sounds first, the meaning is secondary important. I’m not a singer or an writer, just a musician. All feelings I wish to pass on are in music and sounds. Words, titles are just information like visuals of the CD. It’s a direction, a framework.
But the most is important is music.

I have noticed that you have released nearly all of your releases on different labels. How did that come?

Gilles: It wasn’t really a choice. Labels disappeared, others emerge. Noise Museum was disappeared in 2000, then Vacuum was closed too few years after. Brume Records was a new label when I joint us… That’s life.

Let’s talk about your remix-work. The most recent piece you have produced for the band „autoclav 1.1“. Can you name other bands or songs that you have remixed so far?

Gilles: My first remix was for Celluloid Mata in 1999. I made many remixes since this period but now I made it from time to time. My favorite ones are remix for Flint Glass, Seize, Lethargy, Autoclav’ 1.1, Empusae, Aiboforcen, OTX, Hungry Lucy, Eretsua…

How do you get in touch with the artists? Do they come up to you asking for a remix or do you go ahead and ask for a song to remix?

Gilles: All remixes I made were a request from the bands of the labels. I never ask to do it.

Have you ever got a song of yours remixed. And if yes, how did you feel when you heard it for the first time?

Gilles: It happened only one time for the LP Scars I made with Empusae. We’ve composed one original track and remixed it each other. It was a great experience because I like very much Empusae.

Do you plan to do other remixes in the near future? Anything to be revealed already here?

Gilles: Yes I’ve just finished a remix for second album of a Franch artist, but I can’t give his name now. It should be release in June.

What band would you like to cooperate with?

Gilles: I don’t know if I can really collaborate with another band. I think it could be more productive for me to collaborate with a singer because he can make things I can’t do. Create a brand new project with another musician could be cool too. It can be happened very soon, I’ve received a very exciting proposition to do this but I can’t tell more today.

As technician in the movie industry you have been influenced musically by movies a lot. On the other hand OIL10 contributes soundtracks to movies. Can you name us some examples of movies, for which you have composed soundtracks?

Gilles: My fist job was to compose a track for the overture scene of Broceliande. It’s was a French horror film and the first scene is in a musical bar. So the track is on Arena album and it called… Le Bar. It was not really a soundtrack, even I synchronised beats and few sounds for the edited film. My real first soundtrack was for short movie Protocole 33 directed by Benoit Lestang. It was a very exciting experience because cinema is my second passion in life. It was a weird story with heavy atmosphere somewhere between David Lynch and David Cronenberg films. The other soundtrack was for the same director on his second movie Lundi, 35 milligrammes. It was more „classic“ soundtrack, another challenge. The track „Fade to Black on RetroFuture is a new version of all themes from these two films.

Are more soundtracks planned?

Gilles: Nothing planned today.

Let’s talk about your new release „Retrofuture“. Has the 10th anniversary the only reason to release it as a best-of album?

Gilles: Yes, it is what motivated me to create this album. I wanted to combine a meaningful date with the idea of reworking on a couple of tracks. It took me longer and it was a bit harder than what I thought at first, ten years became eleven but never mind, the album is ready now.

Why did you decide to rework all songs for the Cds to give it a more homogenous sound instead of simply putting the original version together, as it is normally done?

Gilles: I quickly gave up the simple idea of a compilation when I found a balance between leaving the tracks in their original state and/or remixing them just for them “to sound different”. Putting original tracks side by side wouldn’t have suited the progressive approach found through my albums. And it would have been chaos. And remixing everything just to put tracks “upside down” seems a more interesting option when you ask other musicians. So I decided to write a new album that would both be a true retrospective to the original project and would show a new will to explore it in a new harmonious way. That explains why sound changes vary a lot from a track to another: sometimes they are very deep like in “The Beast”, or sometimes they are very light like in “Electric Angels”. These tracks are more than remixes; they are alternative versions that show how I see this project nowadays.

There are two news tracks among the 13 tracks. Can you tell us which are new?

Gilles: Fade to Black and Counter Clock. The first one is a reinterpretation of my movie soundtrack works and the second is a brand new track. It’s the last track I’ve composed until today. It’s very important for me, I made  it like it could be the last track of the project. It’s a just an idea but I’ve needed tot hink like that to imagine the mood and have inspiration for the last track of this RetroFuture work.

There are new versions of „Oil 2“ and „Oil5“ of the album „In/Out“ on the new CD. „In/Out“ has been sold out for a couple of years now. Will you re-release it at some point?

Gilles: I really don’t know but if If i’ll do it, I’ll remastered it.

What audience do you want to address with your music: listeners of dancemusic and clubaudience, or people who like to listen, enjoy and think about it?

Gilles: The existence of this project, one of the main motivation is to avoid this question haha ☺
I like diversity. I always consider my albums as a “various yet homogenous based programming”. Throughout all my albums, I’ve always wanted to bring together floating elements with sustained rhythmic. Lots of things have changed since the first album but diversity remains the principal axis of this project. “In/Out” was a rather dark, experimental album. However it already contained two rather dancefloor titles. With the following albums, I first developed rhythmics then melodies. From the beginning, my obsession is to explore different music worlds, make surprises. I don’t want to be lock in one music style and compose same music over and over.  Like I said before, I never felt attached to a movement, a musical kind more than another.

According to your website you have performed many live-gigs. Do you remember your first OIL10-gig? How was that experience for you personally?

Gilles: Yes of course, it was in Paris in 2001. I’ve played with Sulphuric Saliva in Les Caves St Sabin, a very nice place. I was very nervous of course but it was a great moment. The place was full of audience. It was the first edition of Industrial Impact, a famous party in France.

What has changed since then and what do you like about performing live on stage?

Gilles: There were no visuals during my first concerts. But it was clear for me it must be an important part of the show. So I realized many short films for the visuals and I think it’s more pleasant for the audience. I don’t see images when I compose but it’s very interesting to illustrate songs after the release. I try to make a real program for the show. So my approach is more entertaining. I play in festivals, there is always many other bands so I know people don’t come just for me. Many of them probably don’t know my albums. So I try to propose effective concerts to captivate the public quickly. It’s a challenge and a great pleasure for me.

What kind of music do you like to listen to in private?

Gilles: I listen many soundtracks for movies, like John Williams or Hans Zimmer scores, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream early works, many pop songs writers like Divine Comedy, IAMX, electro bands like Ladytron, M83, FSOL… But I listen not much music since I compose for the project.

What hobbies do you have besides music?

Gilles: My life have two axis : music and cinema. I had the great chance to work for both of them. I have the same pleasure to be in audience or „at the other side“ to create art. I don’t have much time for other hobbies now ☺

How much do you will demoralised in times of decreasing sales and many illegal downloads to continue to make and release music? Do you feel betrayed or stolen?

Gilles: Yes, we live difficult times. The revolution of internet have many good sides but many dark sides too. Creators have wonderful possibility to touch people all over the world, but people are not ready to pay for art anymore. It’s a very important question, beyond the problem of music. When one or two generations will have in mind music, cinema is free, what will happen to creators ? Honestly  I really don’t know.
Sometimes kids ask me after gig : „hey I love your music ! Could you send me mp3 files ?“ It’s so „innocent“ than I think it’s useless to explain. The reality is just : „you don’t pay what you can get free“. That’s all. It become „natural“. We’re living in a consummer society, we learned to looking for cheaper things, and free is cheapest. If something is not really forbidden, how can we fight against it ?
I think music was sacrified to the internet and computer progress. I think all this adventure is a industrial strategy. We live in a hard capitalist world where free things don’t exist. So one day, when all big compagnies will get all networks, free will be probably stopped. But it’ll be too late for all small structures.

What are your plans after „Retrofuture“? Do you already work on new material?

Gilles: I’m composing a brand new track for a French compilation will be release at fall. And I have a project with another French musician. Not an Oil 10 collaboration but a real new project with a new name. It’s an ambient project but I really don’t know when it’ll be released ! I’ll probably compose for next Oil 10 album at the same time.

Many thanks for answering the questions. We wish you much success for OIL10 for the next 10 years and keep up the good work! Anything you like to say here to your fans now?

Gilles: Thank you very much for your interest !
Of course thanks to all people who support the project and keep it alive during the past decade !

by PromoFabrik (www.promofabril.de) , April 2009