From DNA to the Berlin School

"From DNA to the Berlin School, life is made of sequences"
Christophe Bargeault

Christophe Bargeault's testimony
To immerse myself in the universe of Sequentia Legenda

SL: "How did you discover my music?"

Christophe Bargeault: "My name is Christophe and I am passionate about music, mainly electronic. Although this music does not constitute my DNA, it is nevertheless part of my daily life and I consider it as vital, as air and water can be. This passion has led me on a perpetual quest, from my first memories forty years ago, to the present day where musical networks lead me from surprise to discovery.

It is this quest that led me to meet the Patch Work Music association three years ago, and to immerse myself in the universe of Sequentia Legenda.

I discovered the Berlin School late in life, twenty-five years ago, at a flea market, when a record dealer, looking at my T-shirt with a certain JMJ on it, handed me a vinyl and said: "Here, this is for you". I was holding Klaus Schulze's Picture Music in my hands. That was the start of a new musical life."

 

THE UNIVERSE OF SEQUENTIA LEGENDA
Back to my first electronic emotions

SL: "How do you feel when listening to my sound worlds?"

Christophe Bargeault: " The music and the universe of Sequentia Legenda are fantastic in that they instantly take me back to my first electronic emotions. Like Proust's madeleine, the sounds, sequences and rhythms take me back in time, with this incomparable flavour, while keeping this very current signature."

THE RETURN (LONG VERSION)
A return to the roots, a return to the essential

Christophe Bargeault: "Laurent, you offered us at the beginning of this month of July a long version of your track "The Return". This particular track finds its genesis in 1984 when the idea of your project "Over There" was born in your mind. In 2017, an experimental version of The Return was released and in 2019, your 1984 project was realised. Finally, comes this long version from 2021.

Is this song one of the most important of your career? Listening to this new version, we feel that you still had things to express."

SL: "Indeed, you are right, I still had things to say, emotions to share. This title says a lot about my state of mind and my musical vision: a return to the roots, a return to the essential, in every respect. I reworked this track not only in its duration, but also in its depth, in its "soul" if I may say so. There isn't necessarily an excess of artifice as one might expect when a longer version is released. The challenge was, on the contrary, to make this title "grow" a little more, with subtlety, with sensitivity and creativity. I can't say if it's the most outstanding track in my discography, but in any case, it's the one that Tommy and I played in concert with great complicity and aptness. At the end of the concert in Tübingen, Till Kooper, a musician friend of mine, said something beautiful to me that really touched me: "It's as if I'd just heard the third track of Klaus Schulze's Trancefer exclusively!", and Tommy added: "It made me think back to the nightly rehearsals with Klaus, and tonight I felt in a trance again!"

Christophe Bargeault: "You mention in the notes of this new version the use of a new emulated instrument: the Korg modular PS-3300. At a time when physical reissues of mythical synthesizers are commonplace, you use almost exclusively virtual instruments. What led you to make this choice? Doesn't this "distance" between the composer and his instrument, because of this difference in interaction, slow down your creativity?"

SL: "When I was 18 years old, I had a lot of analog instruments: the ARP Odyssey, the Korg PS-3200, MS20 and SQ10, the Oberheim Two Voices and so on. When the MIDI standard came along, I gradually got rid of my analogue synths and bought digital instruments. Then life took me away from music for a while. Just ten years ago, I started making music again and discovered virtual instruments. Their possibilities seduced me immediately, and I was able to work happily with these emulations while combining my knowledge of analog and digital synthesis.

I don't really perceive any distance between my instruments, virtual as they are, and myself. I have taken my marks, my routines and I always discover with pleasure the vast field of action which is offered to me. With the large and beautiful palette of possibilities to express myself, I have the freedom to sculpt my sequences at will and program certain things that I feel cannot be easily done with a hardware synth. But this is subjective, of course, it's my feeling, the fruit of my experience.

Creativity for me is a matter of sensitivity and it is the language of the heart and soul that takes precedence over everything else."

 

THE RETURN (Long Version)

MY VISION FOR THE BERLIN SCHOOL IN 2021
Self-expression, passion to share and authenticity

Christophe Bargeault: "Compared to what it was when it was born, how do you see the Berlin School of 2021?"

SL: "I believe in this beautiful musical movement and I am still convinced that it has great days ahead. The technology may have changed, but the purely musical approach remains much the same. Once again, as far as I am concerned, it is not the instruments that come first, but the self-expression, the passion to share, the authenticity. CELESTIAL will be my vision for the Berlin School in 2021.

I am already looking ahead to 2022 with RESONANCE, where I invite the audience to resonate with my music, with the Berlin School."

ENTER IN RESONANCE

 

Extract of the first track "Three Astral Arches" from Sequentia Legenda's next musical opus "CELESTIAL".

I am very happy to announce that the work on my next opus "CELESTIAL" is progressing in a positive way. The result corresponds to the idea that had germinated a few months earlier in my mind, it is the reflection of what I wish to communicate emotionally and artistically. A new experience, a new sharing, that I will have the pleasure of presenting and highlighting on 21 September 2021, the date of the album's release.