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1901 BY PHOENIX PROFESSIONAL
We went to visit Sebastian Tellier there in the middle of winter and there was no light or heat! So the vibe of the studio was really not professional but it was the best for us.ĭD: You generated enormous buzz by releasing ‘1901’ as a free download on the website. Actually it was not a real studio but a construction foyer. So that’s why the album has a wider range of sounds on it.Ĭhristian: We recorded the album in Montmartre with Philippe Zdar in his studio. Places that are not dedicated to music at all. We like personal places where we bring our own vibe there. So we wanted to explore things like that.ĭeck: We try to avoid fancy studios. We also rented a room in New York because Francois Truffaut wrote a lot of his movies in rooms. We wanted to achieve all of our dreams and fantasies with this album, to have no limits. To be honest, we didn’t write that much there but it set up the frame for the album.Ĭhristian Mazzalai: Yeah! That’s what we wanted. At the beginning of the songwriting process, we experimented with writing in different places. So when we were there, we realized it was like the Eiffel Tower! So it was like a beautiful dream for us.ĭD: You wrote much of the album on a boat which sounds pretty idyllic – how did that impact on your creative process?ĭeck D’Arcy: We started it on a boat.
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How was the experience for you? Are you familiar with the institution of SNL?Ĭhristian Mazzalai: We thought we realized but when we got there it was even bigger than that. Album 2 (‘Alphabetical’) was like soul and the 3rd (‘It’s Never Been Like That’) was more Berlin rock but on this one, we were open to almost anything.ĭD: You just played ‘Saturday Night Live’. It was the spirit of a wide range of styles and opportunities. The day before the video was shot, I caught up with Christian Mazzalai and Deck D’Arcy on a balmy Spring day in the park.ĭazed Digital: Was there a conscious decision to change the band’s sound and go back to your roots?Ĭhristian Mazzalai: Not of the sound, but of the spirit. Here you can also check out behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot and an interview with directors, Dylan Byrne and Ben Strebel of Bogstandard on the next page.
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In a first for Dazed Digital, this will exclusively be premiered here and on the Subterranean show on MTV USA. To celebrate the album launch, Dazed Digital commissioned emerging video directors, Bogstandard to make a video for their song, ‘1901’. Elsewhere, the shimmering pop thrills on abundant display here point to this becoming an album to crank out loud during the encroaching summer months. Demonstrating the giant leap they’ve made from when they were Air’s backing band over 10 years ago, ‘Love In A Sunset’ is their most epic creation, a 7-minute swell of atmospherics that neatly divides the album in two. Produced by Philippe Zdar of Cassius, they start as they mean to go on with the effortlessly breezy ‘Listzomania’, which then segues into the irresistible adrenaline rush of ‘1901’. For their 4th album, ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’, childhood friends Thomas Mars, Laurent Brancowitz, Deck D’Arcy and Christian Mazzalai have returned to the spirit of their first album and conversely have produced their most forward-looking and adventurous album yet. Which is exactly what those masters of the Gallic pop-rock crossover, Phoenix have done.
1901 BY PHOENIX TV
Release one of your finest songs (‘1901’) as a free download on your website (getting more than 2 million hits in the process) and then go on to play the biggest American TV show out there (‘Saturday Night Live’). Rule number one of setting the comeback trail on fire? Tear up the rulebook.