From Carl Sagan to Cabaret Voltaire, French DJ and producer Chloé shares the influences that shaped her into one of the most iconic figures of Paris’ underground.
Chloé broke through in the early 2000s with releases on Karat, BPitch Control, and Kill The DJ. Many EPs and remixes followed on labels such as Live at Robert Johnson, My Favorite Robot or Throne of Blood, bringing the Parisian artist the opportunity to play her music around the world, leading an entire generation to her electronic music playground.
In recent years, the Rex Club resident has broadened her discourse towards the contemporary art world, collaborating on a number of projects: from revisiting Steve Reich for the “Variations” series on France Télévisions, designing an ever-evolving permanent installation with the French institute for music and sound science to composing scores for several films and short videos.
After a 4-year production hiatus, Chloé now returns to her own Lumiére Noire imprint with a brand new 12″, The Dawn, and announces her third studio album for the fall 2017.
We caught up with the Parisian ahead of her long-awaited return to find out what has inspired such peculiar career progression.
That Tape
My parents used to live in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), my father used to record african music played on the street on this tape. I like a lot the sense of music in Africa where it passes stories from generation to generation. You can hear a continuity of percussions with other rich and diverse instruments. The recording I have isn’t a very clear recording, but somehow this texture is also part of me.
New beat, acid house and 80s new wave
I discovered electronic music through new beat, acid house, and 80s new wave. I had a lot of tapes and vinyl. That was the first time I heard pure electronic music, it was a mixture of electronic and industrial music. I used to love Front 242, Confetti’s, Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire : It was such radical music!
Klute, Alan j.Pakula (1971)
There was a TV show in France I always used to watch, it was called « Cinéma de minuit » : it was every sunday on the 3rd french tv channel, at midnight, it was dedicated to classic movie. All of the movies were subtitled and it was featuring movies from the 20s to the 70s. I don’t remember if that movie was on that show, anyway, I saw it because I liked a lot all these classic movies. The whole atmosphere of the movie works on a tension: one man is missing, 2 girls lie dead, and someone is breathing on the other side of the phone to Bree, a New York prostitute, played by the legendary Jane Fonda. I remember the very particular music on this movie, composed by Michael Small. Also, I have a big respect of Jane’s Fonda’s career which was often debated as she was an anti war activist & civil rights.
Cosmos, Carl Sagan
I had this book when I was a kid in the late 80s, I guess it had a deep influence on my sensitivity, curiosity, and space science. It was one of the first books (probably even the first book) to get science popularised. I remember how intriguing it felt to see those images and stories about space. Since that time I’m still interested on astronomy which I find wide and still fascinating.
Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
That concept album is the mixture of classic folk tracks, with old analog synthesizers, and other tracks without any specific gender, experimental, concrete music. It was very new at that time to mix all this diverse styles in one record, I got somehow influenced by that kind of balance between normal music / experimental. This album was very important to me, I got into music deeply, this is one of the reasons why I started to play guitar.
