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DUPE talks to musician Matthieu Philippe De L'Isle about playing in three bands, dark tunes and unrealised projects

You created a series of sound loops for our current dark theme. What are they and who are they for?

10 studies for CDDJ deck from subjectively dark records from my CD collection, each piece a loop within a loop. Listen: Here

You play in 3 bands at the moment, how do you manage? There are many reasons I enjoy collaborating with others, but sharing the workload is certainly one of them. It's also more enthusing to work with others, especially as I really look up to the people I play with. I manage because the three projects are different, and complement each other well.

With le Réveil des Tropiques we never practice, ever. We only play together on stage or when recording. We improvise, but we stay within a rock idiom. Nothing is written or planned, but it seems we have this idea of what the music is supposed to sound like. I get to play guitar and we have fun posing as this big rock band.

Eddie135 is also improv, but we do usually meet up before any public appearance, were it just to test new gear, or new ways of making music. The tools often define the musical outcome, rather than the other way around. We'll find a setup that's functional, and we'll play with that for a while, until we decide we want to try something else. We're a bit of a research lab for ourselves. Also because we're a duo, we don't take up much space, we can travel lightly, and play with others, and that's something we do whenever the opportunity arises.

Only with Casse Gueule do we write songs in the more traditional way. Ironically, this is the band that most needs to practice but one third of us lives 500km away from the other two. But that factor suits us. But in all cases, what I admire the most, is how a band is so much more than the sum of individuals that compose it. These bands are gifts that have been handed to us, and that we must honour and take care of. That's how we manage I suppose, through a sense of duty and responsibility. Corny huh? Do you have any solo material? I gave my first solo concert this spring. There are several hard drives full of stuff in my drawers, a couple of coolboxes filled with cassettes. I'd be curious to have itunes evaluate how many days of material I have, at various stages of completion. Which kind of sound are you after?

I've noticed that I'm often as much into concept as into result. A lot of times just having an idea is where the creative process stops for me. I'm after any sound really, as long as it's the fruit of an honest quest. I love electroacoustic music as much as I love heavy metal and free jazz and cocktail music and the sounds of silence of course.

What are your unrealised projects? Off the top of my head I've been meaning to write something for the Nelly Boyd ensemble in Hamburg for some years, because they might play it if I did, and that's definitely on my bucket list. I'd like to learn to play bossa nova also, going to Brazil and learning from a great master would be a fine thing to do. At the moment I'm into the idea of building a hobbit hole in my garden. What would be your top ten "dark" tunes?

Well some of them are featured in the loop selection, although there are several that aren't that dark in themselves, just reminiscent of a certain dark mind space for me. I could add : Mahler's "Kindertotenlieder" really hit the spot, and a couple of songs from Schubert's "Winterreise", the "Cold Song" from Purcell's Arthur. Those are things I studied at university. The 2nd movement of Beethoven's 7th, is solemn rather than dark, but I see it as a funeral march, and it evolves rather triumphantly in a rocking death move. I love that moment in "Don Giovani" when the devil (is it the devil?) belches out the character's name. Tricky's first albums I can't listen too, they suffocate me, literally, my chest gets crushed and I can't breath. A lot of club music I find extremely dark. The socalled hedonistic, drug and dance scene I find terribly depressing sometimes. What is coming next for you? We're touring a bit with Casse Gueule. I'm glad because it's a unique band, and people are getting to see us live and appreciate what it's all about, we've been getting great feedback. We're writing an opera. The story takes place in a spacecraft the size of Europe, the main character accidentally kills someone and discovers the secret of intelligence. We don't yet know if the final product will be a movie, a musical play, a record... But we're aiming to premier the songs in January 2015.

2015 will also be eddie135's tenth anniversary. Maybe a new Réveil des Tropiques record. Perhaps some solos. And there's room in the back of my heart/mind for some old time blastfromthepast action, but that's a secret.