INTERVIEW: Five Minutes with SACRE
Parisian duo SACRE have cut the first turf of their upcoming concept album LOVE REVOLUTION. The album features 12 tracks as an episodic series starting at 07:00PM and running through to 06:00AM. Each track introduces the listener to a new character and furthers the plot until all 12 characters meet for a magical mystery ending.
In a marriage of music, art, and social media, a photo shoot by photographer Thomas Braut accompanies the release of each single, allowing fans a window into the visual characteristics of the track. Here the characters become real people, with each episode beautifully styled in accordance with its sonic counterpart. A running narrative in the form of a Facebook Story sets the scene as every installment furthers the plot, submerging the listener in what is more than a mere album, it is a fully immersive experience. SACRE’s two previous releases, ’07:00PM VAHINE’ and ’08:00PM JUNGLIZATION’ set the tone for their newly shared single ’09:00PM THE COCONUT BAR’ which has just hit #1 on the Hype Machine Charts.
Sukil and Hawaii are the artistic architects behind the album. They have hand-crafted every aspect of this endeavour themselves: the story, tracks, lyrics, recording, vocals, production, scene, and wardrobe design, right down to their logo and shared visuals. Every segment has their personal mark on it as they lead us through their whirlwind tale of mystery, sex, and coconut.
We catch up with the prolific duo for some banter about spaghetti, gambling, treason, and car chases…
Tell us a bit about how you came up with the concept for LOVE REVOLUTION?
On the first EP, we wrote a new story for each track, inventing characters with their own story, inventing landscapes. With all that material we were doing the track, the melody, the lyrics, completely immersed in the story. It’s what we did for all our previous tracks. It was the “back office” of our songs.
When we first talked about doing an album, some pieces of the puzzle were already in our minds: the idea of continuity between tracks and the idea to create one story that will embrace all the tracks. We decided to share more of what was in our minds: the story, the characters, the decor.
To those not yet familiar with you, how would you describe SACRE’s sound?
It’s really hard for us to describe our sound, as we try to invent something new each time. We try 🙂 Experimentation is better than recipes. What is important for us is that people feel something and crawl out from their everyday life. We usually picture the sun, the dance, an “elsewhere.”
There seems to be a variety of creative influences that have merged together for this project. What were your biggest inspirations?
David Lynch comes first. We love his precision. The way he takes care of every detail and how free he is. (Thanks for that!)
Alan Parsons who convinced us of the idea of a continuous album. Our characters and some of the events are based on Greek mythology. And curiously, Robert Rodriguez was on our minds a lot. We realize now that we had forgotten about that obvious, obscene and genius way to bring stories to people in our concept. Maybe it will change? Thanks for asking.
Putting together a visual representation for a track (in the form of characters and settings) must be an interesting process. Which comes first, the sound or the idea?
The idea comes first. We fall into a scene that we imagine, then we picture all the elements in it and translate them into sounds. The colorimetry of the scene is our chords (Sukil is synaesthetic). We choose our instruments in relation to the story, in relation to a particular item or in relation to movements in the action. Most of the time, the music follows the scenario temporarily as if we were living it. Seems a bit geeky maybe?
Take us through your collection of gear, tech or software that accompanies your creative expression.
We work with Ableton Live. Best software ever. Merci merci!
Synth sounds come from Moog, Sequential Circuit and Korg synths.
A lot of pedals from Way Huge, Diamond, EarthQuaker devices etc.
And one we adore: the great SVC 350 vocoder shipped from Tokyo in almost one piece 🙂
Social media has played an important role in the release of the album’s first two singles, 07:00PM VAHINE and 08:00PM JUNGLIZATION. How do think platforms like Soundcloud, Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram have changed the music industry?
Sukil: I think it made all of us more demanding. Now we’re free to listen to what we want, whenever we want, and so, free to switch as we want. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that for the first time music is made by people. A kind of new democracy.
Hawaii: Music is art and art is for people. These platforms have brought in tons of great tracks to people. A real shortcut between creators and their audience. I like that a lot. Power to the creation. Not only to the industry.
In the story so far we’ve been introduced to a few characters, including Sukil, the girl with the red beret, and Hawaii, the love preacher. Can you tell us how these characters relate to the real-life Sukil and Hawaii?
Hawaii: Haha, I don’t like to drink a lot of margaritas, but I really think love is the only thing! And I wear that shirt in the real life…
Sukil: It’s true that I’m a routine hater! Also, I’m still waiting for an animal-language translator!!
In fact, we didn’t really want to be in the story. That was not the goal. But as we wrote it, a lot passed from our personalities to our characters.
What can listeners expect from the upcoming LOVE REVOLUTION story?
More love – obviously, new characters, mysteries, a lot (too much?) of alcohol, aggressive freaks, spaghetti, gamblers, treason, and car chases…
Follow SACRE:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Soundcloud – YouTube – Instagram – Spotify
