Etienne de Crecy Live - Interview

Seldom stands a six metre cubic structure that challenges all your senses at once, while solid lines of beautifully choreographed geometry play to the rhythm of one man’s pulse. This is Etienne de Crecy live. His shows are an amalgamation of conflicting senses. Music and lights play like a hybrid beast inciting contortionist behaviour that you never dared believe possible. Until now. Beginning in the early ‘90s de Crecy realised music alone wasn’t enough, so at the end of a three year Super Discount 2 tour he enlisted some help. The ‘Cube’ as he so affectionately labels it, is a stage concept created by a François Wunschel and Pier Schneider; members of the Parisian collective Exyzt. The 3X3 tower of light-boxes is as very much a part of the French techno pioneer as is his agile fingers that create the loops, live sequences, effects filters and cuts. It’s a ‘machine show’, a genuine live electronic experience in which every tune is built as he stands solo in the centre square; his ‘studio away from home’. Etienne de Crecy’s shows are something to be remembered. He creates live music, which beckons you physically, sans the laptop. For the past two years he has dedicated himself to his Beats ‘N’ Cubes tour, creating music solely for Etienne de Crecy live; purely to compliment the ‘Cube’ experience. He lives for perfecting his live show. Everything else comes secondary. We listened as Etienne de Crecy talked to us about his role on earth and why he hopes his music encourages ‘sexual relations’ on the dance-floor.

//The cube is six metres tall. What happens if it doesn’t fit in the venue?

EDC: I was in Manchester this week and the cube didn’t fit so I didn’t play.

//Wow. Really?

EDC: Yes, because if people want to see Etienne de Crecy live they must see the cube.

//So you make club music?
EDC: I make music for people to have fun in clubs, so they can drink a lot and try to have ... sexual relations.

//On the dance floor?
EDC: (Laughs). Why not? I think my job on Earth is to make people do.. ah..

//Fun things?
EDC: Exactly. This is why I need to be up-to-date with the music. I don’t care to have a proper style or genre. I prefer to change. I love electronic and techno music.

//And you’re just going to keep going until?
EDC: We’ll see....Until...

//..Until people don’t like the cube anymore and you have to make another shape? Like a circle. It would rotate and you would be in the middle.
EDC: Yes because the triangle is already done and the cross too! Then there’s me with the square. (Laughs)

//French people obviously have a thing for shapes.

EDC: (Laughs).

Rest of interivew up on Dazed Digital soon!