Yuksek

The Creators Project: How did you arrive here—this mental and physical place where you can be alone and completely preoccupied with music?

Yuksek: I was born in Reims, France, and I studied music part time—normal school in the morning and music classes in the afternoon. I did this for nine years. Then I started making music with friends, from electro to harder stuff and pop projects. In the beginning Yuksek was more of a live project. There were no tracks, just sequences pasted together. Yuksek is the kind of guy who creates music for himself, and sometimes he helps people with their music—a director-remixer. The term is not used much, but that’s what it is in the end. It’s like how movies are made. Once you have some material the idea is to find the best order. It’s what I did for Birdy Nam Nam, or like what I did for B*Witch: simplify the tracks to make them accessible. Not in a commercial sense, but for the ears.

Are computers essential to your production work? Has the technology you use to make and remix music changed over time or are you committed to a certain setup?

I’m a little bit old-fashioned when it comes to production. I do a lot of work with preamps, EQs, analog mixing desks, and real instruments. That didn’t change much last year, and I don’t think it’s going change any time soon.

So what are your favorite pieces of equipment?

I love my old keyboards—the Memorymoog, the MS-20, the Prophet—even if I spend a lot of money repairing them frequently.

You recently participated in a special artistic collaboration that took place under the Louvre Pyramids. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

I received an offer from [French director] Ludovic Lagarde to be a part of an exhibition in the Louvre about the writer Umberto Eco. It included various performances, such as poetry readings and video pieces. I created a long track with my friend Clement from the band ALB. We used a bunch of old keyboards, bass, guitars, vocoders. It was something very progressive and psychedelic. It’s hard to explain, but we really enjoyed working together again and playing in such an incredible place.

Have any artists or musicians in particular inspired you recently during your travels?

Everything inspired me last year. I saw many exhibitions in the countries I visited, and I saw many concerts and performances in many genres. It was really interesting to travel so much in the world and see so many things.

What do you have planned for 2010? Will you be releasing a second album this year?

I’m starting to think about it, but the album will be out in 2011. I need time!