modus operandi

"Radicality."

Method & choices assumed...

When, after 20 years of musical inactivity, I decided to relaunch the NéMéSiS-303 project, the world had changed! (LOL) Normal! No kidding, only those who knew the pre-BUG era of the year 2000, may be able to understand my feeling! Composing and arranging electronic sounds was clearly not yet within the reach of everyone. Not only were the costs exorbitant, but electronic music was not particularly popular at the time, except for some "visionaries" who would have sniffed out the good deal before others... In short, by putting the project back on track, I wanted to pick up where I left off and integrate this "old school" parameter, which was unavoidable from my very modest past "experience"... Moreover, quite honestly, I didn't feel like diving into the "wonderful" world of the overbidding of new tools/toys within reach of my wallet or rather my credit card! The world has changed! We will soon no longer pay with cash but with cards and electronic chips (bio-integrated)! The world has changed, the world has evolved, the "ecosystems" have been transformed! The world of music production has adapted... (irony...) The hardware and software innovations are clearly "monstrous" compared to what we did in the 80s and 90s. The days of the first microcomputers coupled with a few external elements are long gone... No more wires, no more cables, no more physical connections... Far fewer nodes! (LOL) At least things have evolved a bit along the way even if the basic principles remain! (LOL) Now, for a few hundred euros, anyone who has the means can access the composition and arrangement of quality sound loops to the point that a new emerging market has emerged: that of "neo-musicians" and other apprentice "sound tinkerers" for whom entire platforms are now dedicated! Progress is unstoppable! Even a 3 years old child can become a performer or a DJ! (LOL) Cool! Well, it depends... Because, not only do we idolize "profitable" icons who have become the flag bearers of a flourishing industry, but we also flood and saturate the market, err, the "music scene", with myriads of productions of all kinds... We thus create an alternative ecosystem on which the profits feed the gluttonous monster of the electronic music industry! The world is what it is! If it changes, it is because we change too! Well, at least the mass changes, mutates, individuals too, but not all in unison! In conclusion, the individual freedom to choose remains! Going off the beaten track has many advantages... Doing things differently even becomes an asset for those who wish to go their own way!

In short, by elaborating the ins and outs of the project NéMéSiS-303 version 2020-2021, I made a choice artistically "radical! (LOL) Not to let myself be seduced by the sirens of the "monetized modernity", not by pure and simple rejection but well by concerns of coherence and transparency of a step aiming at taking again by where all had begun! Also, after having "hibernated" since the stage of the first software and sequencers until 2020, the question of the technological evolutions then arose as well in terms of costs and benefits as of control of the creative and artistic process... Moreover, by assuming the will to start again from scratch, at least to start from a blank page in order to begin a progressive upgrading in self-taught mode, the choice not to succumb to the facility was too tempting! (LOL) No longer in touch with the scene, nor aware of the current trends, I undertook an "initiatory" journey in order to try to explore, experiment, discover and rediscover, test, learn and shape my own electronic musical identity. A process that I have staggered by marking out the course by stages essential to the schooling of the rudiments of the independent musical production. In short, I could not have conceived the project otherwise than by posing an ad hoc framework and conditions postulating that the success of the enterprise was not held to the strictly material conditions but to those of a creative and developmental process. In other words, that the progression would be carried out of itself if the stages were crossed without confusing infatuation and precipitation... (LOL)

Let's be clear! I don't reject technology in the broadest sense as the source of the musical current in vogue for more than three decades now! It would be silly and the demonstration of not having understood anything of the phenomenon emerging since the first "dance" successes having shaken the MTV charts of the time! (LOL) If I have a critical opinion on the drifts, it is initially by concern of honesty towards myself and the "artistic" dimension that I make carry the project and its components. At the same time, if I display my opinions on the subject it is also in the idea to underline the "extra soul" which inhabited the pioneers of a movement related at its beginnings to a counterculture saving from the dictates and the socioeconomic climate in place at the end of the 20th century! Because, without forgetting the context, the reasons, the state of mind or the values of a community at the base of a phenomenon with a planetary range from now on, the technological evolutions will have allowed the following generations to immerse themselves in a universe of sounds and pre-parameterized arrangements, standardized to the point that their pre-calibrations standardize the tendencies, the creations, the inspirations... In short, without setting myself up as a "valiant" defender, as a holder of a "truth", as a past lover or as a nostalgic of the "good old days", I draw attention to the simple fact that one should not confuse an experimental, artistic or creative approach with the mechanical and bulimic production of melodic sequences more than ever arranged by increasingly imposing algorithms... Moreover, it appeared essential to me that in terms of training, it was impossible to make a clean sweep of the backstage of an electronic sound whose evolutions I had followed since the first personal computers were introduced in the European homes at the end of the 80s. However, the compromise was to find the alternative! And without "spitting in the soup of modernity of which we are all pure products", the alternative found is itself the fruit of the evolutions of the software accessible to the general public and which provide tools sufficiently adapted to please oneself! Because, in this sense, the objective remains the same! But without falling into the always more, the last updated version, the plugins, the sound banks...

That's how I feel, I assume it, I made it my engine! Because what stimulates me is to explore, to try to understand, to do, if possible, better with little, at least to start from what I have at my disposal! It's already not bad! A computer from the 2000s! (LOL) One or the other software in their standard versions. A vintage headset, recovered, recycled, cobbled, patched ... A keyboard and the trick is done! All that's left to do is find the inspiration, compose, arrange, mix and send for a shared broadcast! Once the process is well established, all that remains is to make things happen in the most coherent way possible! So, also by asking the "right" questions! Why do we need to ask these questions? How can we do it? With what means, what principles, what values? And if the claim of a creative and artistic act is assumed, what is its deep meaning? This is "high-flying" thinking, I grant you, but not enough to evade the debate! Nevertheless, it is also that to make music "incarnated!" In other words, the individual, the character, his personality, the artist behind the buttons and screens... Who is he? What inhabits him, animates him, motivates him? We tend to forget this, but the glitz and glitter, the podium or the exhibition make the depth, the soul become smaller and smaller as long as the ego predominates and racks up the stake of a "development-mental" process before anything else! It should not be forgotten, but there is always a "brain" behind! (LOL)

nms303