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photograph: Jean Marc Lubrano
Go to: www.nanomusic.fr
The young prodigy makes people waltz
As a young kid, I was a musette music star. At the age of 7, my father, who played himself accordion, made me already learn this instrument as a duty. Everyday, at least one hour. I therefore became rapidly talented. Three years later, I was playing on my first stages. I had to go, I could not make mistakes with the sound, the melody or the rhythm. I was part of an Auvergne folk band, but in the city of Orléans. I belonged to a collective: the little accordion prodigies, conducted by Maurice Larcange. What a success! It still amazes me! We played in the Zenith concert room, on TV, we made records. These meetings looked like rave parties, but rather for white hair people. Everyone took part in the party, even the musicians. With 15, I already earned well my living, but I decided to stop.
Marcel stimulates creativity
At the end of the 80’s, I met Marcel Kanche, the first singer, whom I have been working with. He became my artistic father. The revolution, the head upside down. I found myself in underground places, in front of different people, coloured hair, guys who used to hail artists, plasticians doing performances. A real SHOCK! I then discovered that I had been playing before a music which was not mine and for people to whom I had not much to say. I did not know that I could play for teenagers of my age. With Marcel, I created for an audience I could feel. Something more convivial was taking place. We recorded ‘Je souris/Je fume’ for Barclay.
Kent: the start of another story
Marcel’s audience were often musicians: Kent, Stephan Eicher, Les Innocents, those I will be later working with. At the beginning of the 90’s, I started with Kent “another love story”, which is still lasting. The whole alternative movement brought out again accordion from behind. There were then millions of albums for “Engelberg” by Stephan Eicher. I got more and more engagements. I decided to accompany everyone in studio, even artists far away from my own taste, while on stage I selected more radically. Because, when touring, you commit yourself to intensely living with some people. For recording session, I was asked from time to time to play my music, no producer knew accordion. For me, it was important to create my music around other artists. This is also how I built myself. By playing with so different people: Boy George during his Krishna period, Georges Moustaki, Suzanne Vegas.
The accordionist becomes a musician
From 1998 on, after hundreds of concerts, I wondered about the function of the artist. I thus started to create on my own in order to express all that I was already writing. But this also allowed me to improve my accompaniment work, because I understood that every night is a challenge and a risk for the artist, not for the accompanist who puts himself at the service of the artist. Musician is a generic word. We are not all doing the same trade. Today, I gave up my life insurance by accompanying less and less pop singers, by being more and more selective. I have more and more difficulty to commit myself for others. I have been doing it since the age of 16.
And the past became glorious
I have for a long time believed that my past in musette music was shameful. In fact, it was great. This past I rebelled against served me well later. I still profit a lot from it: an intense and immense relationship with the audience. We play for others, not only for ourselves. Music gets all its importance live, even if I love reading music scores, even if I write all day. On paper, music is intended for very few people.
Songs to be followed
Kent and Marcel Kanche helped me to act. The first one as a publisher, the second one by writing texts for me. I took my time to create the “songs” repertoire, my first record. I was then asked to play it on stage. I have since recorded seven records, all from a “cottage industry”, that is to say little or not at all distributed, but within the framework of a fair business. The record for Bleu Electric is the next, but the first one distributed in shops. Moreover, “De l’autre côté du vent” starts on track 41. Because I am not at the beginning of the story, because it is not the end as mentioned by “à suivre” (to be followed), the last title, which is not part of the record. Therefore, my discography goes on. I have since written a lot.
On stage, non-stop
On stage, the show starts and the audience does not know where we are going to. I don’t either. And it is better so. I express non-stop musical ideas and everyone is free to react and to applaud when he wishes. I am not anymore in the tour style interspersed with interludes. I want my music to be heard and I therefore decided to propose an uninterrupted, fully improvised trip. I do not know where music takes me, but the journey is beautiful. Magic, this is what interests people. They follow you. As a result, I rush forward!
Otto’s revelations
My meeting with the Austrian Otto Lechner in 2000, this is the second time I got my head upside down. A revelation. Thanks to Robert Santiago, who used to accompany me at the time and who is the greatest accordion expert: he gave me only one record from his huge collection, Otto’s ‘Accordeonata’. This was the record I wanted to make, I dared not making. At that time the Radio-France Ateliers de Création ordered me a 10 episodes series about accordion. I dedicated the penultimate to Otto. I went to listen to him and meet him in Slovenia. The musical slap of my life! He had understood all what had to be understood. Him, blind, putting his fingers on the accordion placed on the ground, before taking it and standing up! That day, he played my music, the one deep inside me. He freed me. As a result, we quickly played together, a free improvised conversation. And once again, the audience followed us. I became adult.
State of affairs before official publication
‘ De l’autre côté du vent’ (on the other side of the wind) is not an accordion record, it is a composer’s album, whose main tool is the accordion. It is my vision of the world, like a snapshot, recorded during the summer 2004. This is also about an encounter with a producer, Pierre Walfisz. I could draw a balance with someone else. Inside, there is what happened to me on the short and long term. Pierre suggested me two musicians: Jeff Boudreaux, drummer, who plays with the right tempo and carries a part of New Orleans, a city I regularly visit as an ‘Orleanese’; Pierre Fruchard, a scholarly guitarist, with all the poetry in it. I personally invited Hervé Rigaud, an author-composer, who plays punk guitar music and also sings; he helps me to show the rock’n roll side in me. And Terence Briand, my sound expert, who did not do the recordings, but was permanently there in order to have the necessary attention.
A story, peoples
There are also those who have a part of responsibility in the story told by this record. Marcel Kanche, who intervenes on two of my texts: ‘Rien ne sera comme avant’ (nothing will be like before) and “J’étouffais’ (I was suffocating). Otto Lechner, who makes comments between each title. He is permanently there, in the background. I am not with him. He plays alone, he reacts, and he criticizes. It is just wonderful. And there is also ‘Brian’s view’, because Eno’s opinion is important: the production, the sound, the research, the creativity, ‘Les larmes de Gorecki’ (Gorecki’s tears), because he makes us cry. I am sure that he also cries and that these tears are also those of the composer Jehan Alain. There is also ‘Monsieur Astor’, ‘Icare’, “The Barber”, the one of the Cohen brothers.
Arnaud Méthivier, called NANO
In order to accompany listeners of my music in unknown sound countries, I play on records and on stage the character of NANO, who is not only the everyday composer and musician, but also becomes musical travel agent.
We should have loved each other?
This record, this is a bit of my life, a story to listen to, although I am a movie fan. A western in the fallow land of a modern city, a crossing through the environment of the ‘Inhabitants”, the Van Warmerdam’s movie. Nano arrives on a bicycle. He drops it and starts walking on a street, like a Tarkovski’s Stalker, where he meets all these consciences: Marcel, Eno, Piazzolla, Gorecki, the Cohen, Lechner. There is sadness, joyfulness, love, and silence. A silence which tells a lot. This crossing is not so cheerful: There are dead peoples, killed with machetes, shells, and crucifixion. There is also, somewhere there, childhood. Oppression of people. This record could have been called: “we could have loved each other”. This is my view of the world in which I live, but also a kind of utopia. I observe the world having in mind what it could have been. Eventually, it will be “De l’autre côté du vent” (on the other side of the wind). For the wind I use with the accordion and my lungs, without forgetting to refer to the film on creation that Orson Welles did not complete.
“L’autre côté du vent” (the other side of the wind) also means not to ask yourself whether your are or not in the wind (in French= trendy).
Contacts
Tourneur
Country: France
Name: Archimède Production / Stéphane Bigot
Tel: 03 86 52 83 78
E-mail: archimedeproduction@orange.fr
Adress: 3 rue Saint Mamert
89000 AUXERRE
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