Disco Boule album, artwork by Louise. T.

Disco Boule is a French noise trio formed by two guitarists (Brice and Gaëtan) and one drummer (Julien) which navigates between an exacerbating punk-ish power and oblique rhythmic patterns. This sound from the last, eponymous album (Day Off Records, Duality Records, Gabu Records, Urgence Disk, and Vollmer Industries) differentiates from one of the previous release, the EP Soirée Mondaine, for a much dissonant approach in melodic lines and the generally softer touch, showing in the newer effort a more worldwide iconoclast power in the relative contest, with a look to the European plastic creativity.

In the interview below, we analyzed the creative process that characterizes the Disco Boule album in depth with the band.

Let’s begin to talk about the creative process behind the eponymous album; how did this fluid and chaotic craftsmanship generate heterodoxy plastic music, on behalf of punk aesthetics and band formation?

“We’re really proud that you guess a punk aesthetic in Disco Boule’s sound, we work hard for it (or not)! We don’t do punk music, but, for sure, there is often a punk approach. No thoughts are putted into the composition of the tracks; things are very spontaneous. Ideas comes up with a guitar riff, a drum pattern, or an arrangement that sounds good? Okay, that’s cool, let’s keep it and move on! It’s an organised big mess: no one of us did musical studies, we just explore our influences and blast it with spontaneity and fun. We try to create our universe like a joke with some surprises, we want to make pepole dance on a heavy and noisy sound. That’s our letmotiv. Disco Boule is not a standart formation you know, there is only two guitars (with opposite technicity and sound) beated by a drum who hamonize it. Obviously, the band’s unconventional influences create music that’s itself unconventional, somewhere between punk, trance, progressive, and even a little math at times. Nothing more, really.”

So, many different elements enrich the sonic landscape navigating among opposite polarities, but we should say an arty, garage-ish, spacey sound is the recurrent leitmotiv  in this multifaceted instance. The first track Sparadrap is a cosmic journey with  kaleidoscopic patterns on the backwards. Most specifically, heavy sounds are pivotal in this track and generally on the album, determining a parallel component that enforces the main expressivity in a psychedelic sense. So how did this combination of psych and heavy elements happen in your poetry? 

“As mentioned earlier, it’s the band’s influences that led the compositions to navigate between psychedelic sounds and a heavy musical foundation. The guitars are 100% distorted, the drum is loud, but there’s melody, progressive elements, and not just kick ass riffs. That’s a good question! There was never any predisposition at the beginning of the band to say : “We’re going to  do punk or metal, we’re going to do like this band, etc.”  Things just come out as they come, resulting in this ambivalence between short and long pieces, between heavy riffs and psychedelic melody. We don’t know why it come like this, but it’s true that we like to contrasting  atmospheres, disappoint ears in their comfort. The combination that you’re talking can maybe be explain by the differents genre  broughted by each member (metal, techno, pop, indie, jazz, improvisation), we try to  transcend it by joking/playing with listeners… maybe…”

The track named Covoit Exception is dynamic and wavering filling empty spaces for its several stop-and-go musical phrases, navigating into math-punk sounds. The following song, Magnum 2000, flows through hard guitar riffs with a fugal approach, describing a geometrical game between air and solid acoustic materials which is similar to the previous piece in the tracklist. So, why this tactile manipulation in your music?

“Disco Boule’s goal is to perform in live. We do music to have good times and we want to share the power and the energy of the rock’n’roll with people surrounding us. That’s why we prefer playing in the middle of the crowd instead of on stage (you can see it in the back of the record!). Air and solid accoustic materials that you’re talking are maybe due to this reason, to give and retrieve emotional stuff in live!”

The ‘60 lysergic component of this release has the principal role on the track Soirée Buvette, without losing the heavy punk attitude. The main guitar riff is a mantric phrase that taps into the historical psychedelic garage poetry, but also a particular influence from Indian raga music broadly speaking. Anyway, following this part the song evolved into a noise punk music, exacerbating the listener using a Western character. How was this spurious approach
born?

“It’s not sure that the band would have cited the ’60s and Indian raga to define this song. Perhaps we’re the reincarnation of some Hindu or Woodstock soul. The transition to noise-punk remains a trademark of the band. Finding in the composition a simple, kick-ass riff to really wake up the crowd! For example, its cousin “Soirée mondaine” has a similar structure…”

The last track, Tequila Rapido, was created with the collaboration of the Estonian artist Valge Tüdruk, who gave an original touch to this end of th-+e record. The song is a fragmental and flaming testimony of your punk playing in addition to mathematical details, giving auxiliary form for the general listening of the album. Can you tell us how these concepts came alive in your record?

“The song itself came from a desire to create a very, very short composition. The choice of 36 shots every 5 seconds seemed the most appropriate way to create something short. Nothing original in the world of math rock, but a little for us, because we mostly play a lot of repetitive riffs. We must specify that this track is a hidden track on the record… it’s the only one on the record with a singer… Valge Tüdruk performed before our show on a party (La Peniche, Chalon Sur Saone), and we invited her to improvise something in live. It was really good and we decided to keep it for the record.

“Thank you for listening the record and for your interesting questions, dude!”