Leading vocal Charlotte Maison is singing « the end is just a new start » in the song Forever, the titlesong of the fifth Sold Out album. You will find the DNA of Sold Out in every song : the voice of Charlotte and the recognizable irresistable sound of David Baboulis.
Sold Out brings us just that step further, higher & extremer. Never before, has Sold Out showed such an explosive rythm, like in the songs ‘Fake’ and ‘Do it again’. A few days before that brilliant showcase in l’Archiduc Brussels on March 9th, Frontview was curious about the album with some questions.
There was a collaboration with Goose, how was it to work with them?
David : We’ve been following them since the beginning, we like the band for a long time, and we also knew they were familiar with our music. So when we started thinking about collaborations, it seemed obvious that we had to do something with them. We didn’t know at first if we would go for a remix, or a production, but we knew it would fit, both musically and personnally. We sent them 4 demo tracks, with rough ideas, and they chose « do it again ». We just had the base of the track, with the main bassline and a simple beat, and we went to Kortrijk to work with them, on their nice old synthesizers and effects. Bert played drums on the track and it immediately worked.
We were like children playing with their toys. Then I came back home with all the recordings, and I spent time to edit everything, and put it together to make the final track. It was a really cool experience, very natural, we really did get along very well.
How did they made a contribution to the album: Maya Postepski, Marta Salogni and Elsa Grelot.
David :We met Maya Postepski (the drummer of Canadian band Austra) at a party in Brussels. We really like her band, so we talked to her, then we sent her some demos and she liked every track. So we started working on one, then a second, a third, we really worked a lot together, she co-produced a good part of the album with us. She’s a very good producer and she was important throughout the whole process cause she was like a coach to us. It was good to have her make decisions, because when you’re only with two working on music, you need a third person to decide stuff, otherwise you can get stuck.
For the mixing, we met Marta Salogni through David Wrench (who is mixing for The XX, Sampha, FKA Twings, Frank Ocean, etc…). She has worked with him on all these albums for the past years, and I thought she would really do a good job on our music. And I was right, Marta is an amazing mixer, she is very talented. We would just listen to her first rough mix and think « wowww, she really gets the point, she understands our music » It was also very easy to work with her. The sound is very open, punchy without being agressive.
Elsa is another mixer on this album, we have worked with her in the past on the album « More ». She mixed at Synsound Studios, the recording-studio of Dan Lacksman (Telex). She’s also a friend, and we need someone close to be able to take time. The track « Oppression » was not easy to mix, so it was good to do it with someone who know us well. On « Oppression », we also worked on the production with Alain Benisty (aka DARKO). It’s a complicated structure, there is a lot of change within the track, it even slows down in the middle, so we asked Darko to help us with the production, cause he’s a really good dj, he knows minimal house so well, and we wanted to give that Berlin vibe to a part of the track.
Bart Demey (Nid and Sancy) mixed 3 tracks on the album. We contacted him after having worked with GOOSE, we liked what he did for them. He mixed 3 tracks, we wanted a more brutal and spontaneous sound for these ones (do it again, fake, breaks) and he’s good at pop music too, so we wanted someone who could be pop and indie, and coherent with the rest of the album.
In the album, you joined human elements, by using drums,percussion, a Hammond organ.
David : We recorded drums with drummer Victor Le Masne (Housse de Racket), it was important for us to have real drums sometimes, like in the track Oppression, and keep a drummachine on other tracks. Generally, we tried to make the beats more human, a little less robotic.
We were at the Jet Studios in Brussels, recording drums with Victor, and when he finished, we listened to other tracks, and he had an idea with the Hammond organ that was there in the studio, so we recorded him playing the organ on « fallen ». It was very spontaneous, and we kept the track !
The electronic relationship between you and the synthesizers, does it exist?
David :I started making music on a commodore, at that time, it was very rudimental, only 4 tracks, and that’s all. My dream was to have a MS20, never knew why this one, but as soon as I could afford it, I got one, and it never left my studio.
I don’t consider myself as a specialist in the subject, if I find a sound that is interesting, I use it, no matter what type of sound.
I can also spend the night searching for the right sound…
The vintage synths have all their specific sounds and vibe, today it is not always easy to find the right thing. It’s a lot of the same sound with a different packaging…
The album ‘Forever’ is made without rules and a free mind. So in the past, there were more rules and restrictions by record companies, etc..... ?
David :No, we never had that much rules from outside, it’s more because we were putting ourselves under pressure. We are self-producing, totally indie from 2010 now, but even with our former label (Anorak supersport), we were free to do what we wanted to do.
I think the main difference now is that we are older, we have more experience, so we don’t put ourselves under so much pressure, we want to keep it cool. If it’s not fun doing it, then there’s no point, we have to be totally enjoying what we do, so we try to free ourselves from what the market wants us to do. But we’ve always been like that. We never did what people expected us to do.
Is it the best album till now ?
David : It’s our best album so far, cause it was very natural. We felt completely free and without stress and pressure. We don’t really care of what happened next, and we don’t have anything to lose… We also find a better way to work together, each of us has more and more its right place. And we were lucky to work with very talented people.
Who is doing the management of Sold out?
David :Our ex manager Tom left the music industry 2 years ago to become a baker !! Back to the roots. So we do it ourselves now. It’s not easy, but I wouldn’t give that job to someone else, unless I’m sure he can do a lot better than us.
The album cover is special, almost without clothes, very original. Tell us something more about the message behind it.
Charlotte :The picture on the cover is made by the photographer Gregory Derkenne, he’s a great fashion photograper based in Liège, but working all over the world. We have been collaborating with Gregory from the start of our band, he made all of our album covers (except for the movie soundtrack Pupplylove, cause it was the movie poster). The cover is very sensual and cold at the same time. I think you can feel that in the music too. The music is very emotional but it’s electronic music that can be very cold, made with a lot of machines, and some real instruments as well. The neck-chain represents something industrial against the skin that is very bare, without any protection. We didn’t want an image to be “sexy” but to be very upfront, simple and radical at the same time.
In the song ‘Forever’, you are singing “the end is just a new start”. Is this album a new beginning or can you compare it with the style of the albums before?
Charlotte : All our albums are always a new beginning, cause we feel like we have to bring something new everytime. Otherwise we get bored. We also change as persons, so we are not the same as 10 years ago. We couldn’t have written this album years ago, and we can’t write the same tracks as on our first album (Stop Talking) today. We evolve so much, our tastes evolve, the technology evolves, the programs we use, the instruments, etc…
Undoubtedly you have musical examples, maybe synth-heroes from the 80’s ?
Charlotte : Of course we are fans of Front 242, we even went on tour with them in 2011, we played before them on the Germany Tour. It was an amazing experience, at first we were a bit nervous, cause our music is a lot more pop, but Front 242 really liked our album and they were confident it could work. Indeed the audience was great, they loved us, and we sold a lot of records. The Front 242 fans are really crazy, they even have FRONT242 tattoos, they are hardcord fans!!!
Forever is a schizofrenic album.
Charlotte : First it’s because it’s a mix between David and I, and we are completely different people, different approaches on writing music. And also because you have a lot of melancholy and love in the album, but also some more dance-able tracks, or more aggressive/industrial sounds. It’s like a mix between Madonna and DAF… you see?
The album will be presented in l’Archiduc Brussels. Why there, the right place ,maybe with a history for the band?
Charlotte :It’s a beautiful bar we like to go to very late at night, it’s still open when all other bars are closed. We have seen a few showcases there that were really good. A few months ago, we saw Alex Cameron at Archiduc, and we thought we could also organize our showcase there!
Was there already a try out of the songs before the showcase?
Charlotte : Yes, we toured in China in the beginning of the year! We played 7 shows in 8 days, in 7 different cities. It was really crazy, we played in small indie venues, and we tested some tracks of our new album there. China is amazing, it is so big, the cities are so wide, with millions of people, we got back here and Brussels looked like an empty city. Brussels is so quiet compared to the big cities in Asia. The Chinese audience reacted really well to our music, we could feel that there is an independent scene there, and they are very interested in foreign bands.
Are you a storyteller on the liveset between two songs?
Charlotte : No I almost never speak, and when I speak, I am so awkward that I just think “Shut up Charlotte!”.
So I just try to focus on the music, cause it’s what we are supposed to do on stage. I also feel that talking much between songs, breaks the story that you are telling with the music. It pulls out the people from the music, and brings them back to reality. That’s why I like short shows, where tracks follow each other with almost no breaks.4