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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Émilie Simon
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 20 July 2010
Trained at the Sorbonne and armed with a masters degree in musicology, Émilie Simon makes electronic pop music nowhere near as stuffy as her qualifications might suggest. As well as three studio albums, she also recorded the soundtrack for the original release of ‘March Of The Penguins’, which was sadly cut from the repackaged english language version. Her new album, ‘The Big Machine’, is out this week, and you can catch her live at London’s Cargo tonight.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I’ve been playing music since I was a child, I started at seven, and was involved in a lot of classical music in my home town. Since then I’ve been in several bands, attended jazz school and explored different music by attending different schools. I’m very curious of different genres and styles of music.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
New York really inspired ‘The Big Machine’, that’s where I’m living now and that’s where I’ve been for two and a half years. The city gave me a lot of inspiration, it has an energy that is very unique which I didn’t realise until I lived here – I’d played shows here but it wasn’t until I moved here that I realised it had this crazy energy. Some of the album was already written before I came to New York, but the city really added inspiration and direction for the rest of it.
Q3 What process do you go through when creating a track?
It depends on the song or the project I’m working on. For instance, it’s a different process when I’m working on music for movie soundtracks. For studio albums, I try to be as creative as I can, I don’t really like it when I gain too many habits. Although, it’s normal to have good and bad habits, I like to putting myself in different environments. For ‘The Big Machine’, I was composing a lot of it directly into a computer, so once that had been done I decided to leave it for a while – I wanted to leave them open for a few years and keep the songs free so that I could go away and come back to them.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
It’s difficult to say as it’s never something that I plan. With ‘The Big Machine’, New York had such an influence on me, going to exhibitions etc, so it’s things that you process and take in but are difficult to pinpoint exactly what they are. Kate Bush was one of the first artists I listened to as a child, so she has been a major influence and I have a lot of admiration for her. I’d love to be able to thank her, as I think she has a freedom with her music, which I think opened doors for a lot of artists. I have close sensibilities to her music and can really understand it, but again it’s not something that is planned, it is just apart of my bones from listening as a child.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
Try to listen to it carefully, listen to a few songs from the same album and try to listen to it with a good quality of sound, especially the first album as it has lots of layers. I’d say close your eyes and see if you can picture the song and picture the colours, as that’s what I do when I write them.
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
I don’t really make or have any plans. I usually play things by ear all the time. I guess it’s easy for me to say that, as I write a lot, so it’s easy for me to think there will be another new album at some point. I don’t like to plan as I’d rather it be about the moment, if I start using too much of my brain to think about what I’m going to be doing next, then I have less room to think about writing. But I’m interested in different aspects of music, so it could be anything from touring, writing for a movie again, or going back into the studio. I think ultimately I want to carry on expressing myself the best I can with the music. I’m so lucky to have that ability in me, it’s like having a garden and making it grow into something beautiful. I’d like to try and be a genuine artist in this world, I’m lucky in that I’m able and free to do the music that I want, so I want to make sure that’s something I do by focusing on getting better and just being as genuine as possible.
MORE>> www.emiliesimon.com
