Losless - Khoal Interview

Losless

An interview by
Riley Reinhold

• When was Losless founded?

Losless was Created in 2012 by you Benjamin Charriere and Etienne Laurent’s encounter. 

• Did you work together before that? does each you have a career before that? 

Benjamin : Before producing music together, I used to produce electronic music alone in several different projects and before that I was a guitarist in a Progressive Rock band.

Etienne : I’ve never belonged to a band, I play classical piano since I was 7.

• How did you come to choose a one like Losless?

The word « Losless » is a reference to the word « Lossless » which is an audio coding format. We chose this word to refer of the numerical word and we willingly put a mistake inside to symbolize our approach of allowing mistakes in electronic music.

• Tell us about the relation of Losless and the search engine google (can be entertaining) answer can help to insert some lightness in the interview..if you like that. 

If you are looking for "losless" on the internet, google will probably correct the misspelling ... I sometimes wonder if we should make music easier to listen to ... Losless would find a correct spelling and we would exist for Google! ha ha

• Do you have any relevant contact to the people you have performed or are you rather accustomed to work isolated for your own?

Rather on our own.

• You own a lot of hardware equipment what is the background and what was the idea?

For us, the use of hardware, imposes a necessary limit to our artistic approach. Working everything inside the box would push us to produce a more perfect music, more quantified... with hardware tools, humanized sounds become easier

• Did you have a masterplan and knew what you wanted to do at various stages? It seems you work conceptionally  when you say "n unique show who states as a pivotal work for the band’s evolution,where electronic music codes are meant to be broken. „

Our last visual show "about: blank" represents a first step in our career where we have allowed the viewer to visualize our artistic approach through our minimalistic lighting scenography. It was very important for us to make every effort we could to give some keys of understanding for our music on stage. 

• How much influence does your live performances have on the releases you have done.

When we write at the studio, we do not think our music for the dancefloor, we try to be sincere with ourselves, in order to create and feel something. 

• What kind of labels are : “Freegrant Music” or “Majestic Family Records”.

These labels were representative of our style of music at a time, more oriented progressive house ... Emkan Records » , signing three new EPs “ Signature “ , “ Rur’ “ and " Largo“  « Emkan Records » is a french label which belongs to the producer and also friend « Gary Stallman ». We really wanted to have these Ep’s on this label as this guy really support us to move forward. 

• In how far are they different?

« Emkan Records » is not specialized in a particular style of music but it keeps a thread that we like and a state of mind that we have in common. For us, they are especially different because of their proximity to artists.

• Do you refer to yourself as live musician rather then recording artists?

I think we are both, we really love the work of studio writing, it's a place where we can imagine and think our music, experiment gears for hours to create the right emotion ... on stage, it's different, we’re really trying to play our music while bringing much more spontaneity.

• What does a recording on a label mean for you .

The labels we have followed in our career are representative of the different periods of our lives, themselves represented by various styles of music. Our musical style has evolved, our musical tastes too… Today, we are honored to be part of our own times of life and musical genders. 

• Are you both friends from youth on?

We are friend since kinder garden.

• What is so special about the chemistry between you to..what creatives the creative flow.

There is a balance between us, where one will come sometimes to push the other towards an unusual path. It’s a complementary story. 

• The link to the track :.which was clicking 700 000 times was very different in style…from the music you have send us…how has the music evolved from the beginning to now..and is the release for TRAUm in any way special or is it a continuation of the music release in 2016  on Emkan Records » , signing three new EPs “ Signature “ , “ Rur’ “ and " Largo“ ?

Yes, our music has evolved a lot. It has « deteriorated » over time (in a good way). The more we compose tracks, the more we want to bring spontaneity to our music, integrating little by little hardware in our productions. Khoal - EP is definitely in the continuity of our last three EP’s released on "Emkan Records", it gets closer to a goal without reaching it ...

• How did you accumulate so many clicks for that mega click track, what is the story behind this on?

Concerning this music, it's very funny, Initially, we did not want to release this song, then finally, we decided to release it as a free download in 2012. And we had never known such a success for a track ... the leaders? Turkish people ! This title is a hit in Turkey, it's really funny to see our statistics explode in this country! So, we are invited to play in April 2018 in Antalya at the Magic Break festival, alongside Matador and other great artists that can not be revealed. Sorry to disappoint you, it's not a robot programmed to generate clicks if we knew how to do that we would have made a robot to solve the problem of google engine. Haha  

• What did you do between 2012-2015 ..did you have break?

Between 2012 and 2015, we produced a lot of tracks and did some gigs in France

• Which scene are you part of the  dj club scene or more or a live gig scene, seems to be a bit different here.

In France, it's similar, there are clubs and big concert scenes. For « about:blank », we have done a lot of gigs on big stages. Being bigger than our old lives, it's a show that has not been played in a club so far, but we're working on a smaller version.

• For us your music combines also the past with the now and the future in the way that it picks up new wave traits of  UK indie bands in the  heritage of 4AD  or Killing Joke and  fuses it with the now…is that  impression wrong?..is it something different?

We don’t know very much the bands you quote but I understand the idea, you’re probably right concerning the indie UK spirit. We don’t question ourselves about the music style we want to develop, we just let it go 

• You music carries the industrial quality similar to Unspent but more detailed less techno..how did you come to work around that quality.

We have always liked to play on the subtlety of elements, the subtleties that not everyone hears but which participate unconsciously in the humanization of our music. At the same time we tend to sometimes orient ourselves towards dark landscapes… This is the actual mood :) • How old you you two?

Benjamin : 29 Etienne : 28

• What music  in the electronic world was/is interesting for you..or you just like to listen to casually?

We like it when electronic music is timeless. Not being able to date an electronic music, it is rather rare, the standard sounds evolve very quickly and some choices of productions can become old-fashioned. A Good electronic track is when the composition is more important than the production, a good composition can even forget a bad production ... the opposite doesn’t work but sometimes both are good. If we had to make a selection of three electronic track we keep in mind, it would be: Marc Romboy - Model 1601 James Holden - 10101 Minilogue - The Leopard (Extrawelt Remix)

• Interested in literature?

Etienne : Yes, I used to read… Murikami, John Irving, Umberto Eco… Long list, I like comic books too, currently i’m reading Enki Billal. 

• What are you favorite venues in France?

For now, we really liked the « Nouveau Casino » in paris and also the « LNVRS Club » in Nancy. But the best for now was « Coucool », it’s an unique and unusual event near Paris, where we played twice. 

• In which part of France can people appreciated you music the most…?

Difficult to answer, in France, We are unable to know who listens what, where and how… .

Losless

Khoal

Traum V219

Available at:

Tweet