The French synth-pop group, Celluloide has evolved while maintaining a balance of the past and future. While their music is deeply rooted in the 80’s electronic synthesizer melodies of Depeche Mode, Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, and Trisomie 21, there is still a futuristic sound and energy. The balance of futuristic sounds and the 80’s feel gives them a comfortable yet unique atmosphere to their music. Consisting of 3 members, Celluloide have been creating sexy, electronic music for years. Darkleti, the lead singer, has a dead-pan and somewhat robotic voice that sounds aloof and cool. The other two, Patryck and Member u-0176 write the music and some of the lyrics. Together, Celluloide helped to begin the French electronic record label Boredom Product. Their debut album, “Naïve Heart” was not well known outside the French synth-pop circle but critics and fans did love it. Celluloide were also never afraid to show their love of their influences. They contributed to “Followers Of The Moonlight: A Tribute To Trisomie 21” with an amazing version of “Logical Animals”. They also released the Internet-only “Naphtaline” EP that consisted on 6 of their favorite songs from other artists. The “Naphtaline” EP includes cover versions of songs by The Sisters Of Mercy, Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Cure, Lush and more. In 2004, Celluloide has just released their sophomore LP “Words Once Said”. With bleeps and bloops and dance-friendly rhythms, “Words Once Said” is as romantic as it is cool. While upbeat songs like “Two Fridays A Week” and “I Stay With You” have pounding rhythms, their songs possess a beautiful sadness too. “This Aching Kiss” and “The Things We Felt” are poignant tracks about loss of love. On a magnificent Spring day in 2004, I had a conversation with all 3 members of Celluloide and we discussed all topics that the fans are curious about. This may be the definitive Celluloide interview. Celluloide, have a beautiful future ahead of them and “Words Once Said” will help them on their way. Remember the poignant music while growing up in the 80’s? As a group, Celluloide, use those emotions, recapture those feelings as they re-create that atmosphere. Fall in love with synthesizers once again!

T.JONES: “"The new Celluloide album is titled 'Words Once Said'. Tell us about it."
DARKLETI:  “This album was made following the same spirit as ‘Naive Heart’. It respects the same synth-pop construction. Songs are melodic and melancholic at the same time.”
MEMBER U-0176: “It’s more rich and complex regarding structures and sounds. Often we are understood as retro only, and I think this LP can give more indications about the modernity behind our music.”
PATRYCK: "‘Words Once Said’ is a kind of second volume of ‘Naive heart’. It's the same kind of songs, the same kind of sounds, but I think it's more dance-floor and modern oriented. We have a better sound quality. It took a long time to work on the mastering even if the songs were written for a long time.”

T.JONES: "How is it different from your last LP?"
DARKLETI: “We tried to improve the quality of the mix, and the vocal parts. And for the first time, there’s one song is in French language, which paradoxically was very bizarre to us.”
PATRYCK: “We wanted to create a French text as different as possible of what we're used to hear in French songs.”

T.JONES: "Do you have a favorite song on the LP?"
PATRYCK: “I really like all of them. But maybe ‘At school’ is the one that makes me the same enjoyment at each listen.”
DARKLETI:  “My favorite one is certainly ‘This Aching Kiss’. I really like the lyrics and the way they’re written. It’s a teen’s feeling, ideal, and deception.”
MEMBER U-0176: “It depends on the moment. It can be one or another following my mood.”

T.JONES: "What song took you the longest to make? Why? The shortest? Why?"
MEMBER U-0176: “For the lyrics it was ‘Synchronise’, because I had a precise idea of what I wanted them to sound like. But for the music, I don’t really remember. But you know, we always work and re-work on a track until we’re sure It’s exactly the way it should be. So, in the end, we had long working hours on each track.”
PATRYCK: “It's almost the same for each song. Maybe it's faster for songs like ‘I Stay With You’, which counts less sequences than some other songs. Maybe it's longest for songs like ‘Show Me The Way’ but for technical reasons, for the mixing of certain sounds which were on almost the same frequency. We always took a lot of time for every track. There is no song less important than an other one.”

T.JONES: "What is the meaning behind the title of the album, 'Words Once Said'?"
PATRYCK: “It's a reference to the previous LP ‘Naive Heart’. ‘Words Once Said’ is a sentence that has been taken from a song of our debut album, and because the first songs we had for the second album have been written at the same time of the first album.”

T.JONES: "How did you 3 meet and eventually form Celluloide?"
DARKLETI: “We met 15 years ago, at the high school. We became friends. Patryck and Member u0176 started to collaborate together on their own projects. Then, in 2000, they decided to create a band together and asked me to become their singer.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Yes, we met at school and were friends a long time before thinking of joining in a band.”
PATRYCK: “I began to play keyboards on stage with U-0176. Then, he helped me to mix my songs in studio. After these first works, we decided to try another project together with Darkleti as a voice and Celluloide was born. At the beginning it was just a side project for us both but it became a main project at least!” 

T.JONES: "Is there a special meaning behind the name Celluloide?"
MEMBER U-0176: “Not at all, it just sounds direct and electronic. I think it’s unsplittable from our music.”

T.JONES: "When making songs, do you have the music first or do you write the lyrics and/or theme first?"
PATRYCK: “It depends on the songs. Most often, we start with the music then the lyrics come after. But sometimes we've got a text and we imagine what could be the music according to it. Then, it happens that we've got somewhere a music, somewhere a text, and we melt it all and it's like it was written for. That's magic.”
MEMBER U-0176: “It depends on the track actually. We do not always work the same way, and it’s not always the same person that writes the lyrics or the music.”

T.JONES: "What does the name Member U-0176 mean?"
MEMBER U-0176: “It’s a secret. I like it because it sounds like an electro cliché inspired by submarines or robots, but it’s not what it is at all. I like this ambiguity.”

T.JONES: "How did you get involved with the label, Bordomproduct?"
MEMBER U-0176: “At the start, BOREDOMproduct was a collective of electronic artists including founding members of Celluloide, but also a lot more of others that found their ways on different labels and with different names, then we started it as a real label with the release of our debut ‘Naïve Heart’.”

T.JONES: "Musically, who have been some of your major influences?"
MEMBER U-0176: “First, Depeche Mode, that opened me the doors to electronic music, then Kraftwerk for a more conceptual aspect of pop-song and electronics. Then, I’ve been impressed by artists such as Lassigue Bendthaus or Clock DVA, but I enjoy electronic music from Klinik to Tangerine Dreams, from Melotron to Nitzer Ebb, Autechre to Front 242… but I also like more pop stuff like the Smiths, The Crannberries or Placebo.”
DARKLETI: “We listen to many kinds of music, electro, pop, EBM, heavenly or wave, but bands that have an influence on us are electronic.”
PATRYCK: “Personally, I wasn't listening a lot of electronic music, except music for the clubs or artists like Björk. My musical universe is more concerned by Dead Can Dance, Bel Canto, but I like what sounds 80's. I liked bands such as Mesh or DeVision as soon as I heard their songs.”

T.JONES: "What kind of instruments do you use?"
MEMBER U-0176: “Synthesizers, sequencers and computer.”
PATRYCK: “I work with an old sampler and a computer at home, and when I work with U-0176, we used a lot of old keyboards.”

T.JONES: "What is your favorite keyboard?"
MEMBER U-0176: “I don’t know but it must be analogue.”
PATRYCK: “My favorite one is the Juno106 because I love its strings textures and LFO.”

T.JONES: "What was it like growing up in France?"
MEMBER U-0176: “Great, except for music.”
PATRYCK: “It's a country were you can express your ideas and your way of life even if it's different from the majority. Unfortunately, the country seems to be asleep concerning the evolution of the music so it's not easy to bring something new.”
DARKLETI: “Actually, we don’t have any concrete comparison points, so it might not be very objective.”

T.JONES: "The first song on the new album is in French while all the others are in English. Was this done on purpose? Do you get pressure to have songs in English? Would you rather sing French?"
DARKLETI: “Most of the bands we listen to use English lyrics, so we started to write lyrics in English almost instinctively, and we don’t listen to much stuff in French. I like French very much, but it’s very rich and complicated, and I’m hardly convinced by lyrics in French. I wouldn’t be able to tell songs in French I find the lyrics interesting.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Actually, we have pressure to write in French. I think this is one of the reasons why most of the ‘underground’ French artists write in English (or even German). I personally wanted to write in my native language because of the influences of German bands such as Melotron or And One.”
PATRYCK: “The French song was at first an experience. Maybe we'll do it again.”

T.JONES: "Since your native tongue is French, what challenges do you encounter singing or writing lyrics in English?"
DARKLETI: “It seems to me that English is more suitable for being understood abroad.”
PATRYCK: “I think English is more musical than French. It's more difficult to find words in French that sound good musically. I would almost say that it's more important the sound of a word than the meaning.”

T.JONES: "Tell us about the 'Naphtaline EP'."
DARKLETI: “We used to finish our gigs by playing a cover of a band we like. This gives us the idea of make more covers from our favorite bands. We tried to choose non-electronic bands and change their tracks using our own synth-pop style.”
PATRYCK: “In the beginning, we played covers on stage to have fun and to bring fun to the audience. Then, we had the idea to make a EP only with covers.”

T.JONES: "Why did you choose those specific songs for 'Naphtaline EP'?”
DARKLETI: “We made only covers of non-electronic tracks that we really love. We worked on some more tracks but were not happy with the result, so for now, they’re still in the studio. Maybe one day we’ll finish them.”
PATRYCK: “First, because we liked these songs for a long time. Second, because they're not electronic songs and that's why it was interesting to work on it in an electronic vision.”

T.JONES: "You did an amazing cover of 'Logical Animals' for the upcoming Trisomie 21 tribute album. Why did you choose this song?"
MEMBER U-0176: “It’s one of my favorites, and it did not have much of a synth sound in it so, we were not tempted to copy the original.”

T.JONES: "What do you like about Trisomie 21?"
MEMBER U-0176: “I like the early years of T21. I’m a fan of coldwave stuff like Joy Division.”
DARKLETI: “We like their first cold wave albums.”

T.JONES: "You are also involved in the remix project for T21. Tell us about it. What song are you remixing?"
MEMBER U-0176: “We did a remix of ‘No Search For Us’. We turned it into a more Celluloide style, but we kept the guitar melodies which gives a kind of early New Order flavor to the whole.”

T.JONES: "What are some of your favorite T21 songs?"
MEMBER U-0176: “‘Logical Animals’, ‘See the Devil In Me’, ‘Moving By You’, and ‘The Last Song’.”
DARKLETI: “‘Logical Animals’.”

T.JONES: "What musician would you like to work with in the future?"
PATRYCK: “I wish I could work one day with Lisa Gerrard, I really admire her. Besides Celluloide, I compose a lot of songs in her style of music. But I'd like as well work with pop French singers or remix songs for them. I like pop music when it's well done.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Melotron and Wolfsheim and also Neuroactive.”
DARKLETI “And One and Devision, and Mesh.”

T.JONES: "What are the 3 best things about France?"
PATRYCK: “Darkleti, U-0176 and Patryck of course!”

T.JONES: "What are some major misconceptions that people have of Celluloide?"
MEMBER U-0176: “We are often called ‘minimalist’. I think this one is the worst adjective to describe Celluloide even though it’s true that we like simplicity. Also though we obviously use an 80’s retro touch, we include lots of modernity in the way we do things, and I think it’s most of the time completely ignored, but not always. And finally, I don’t like to be called an ‘electroclash’ band.”

T.JONES: "What other groups have you been in?"
MEMBER U-0176: “I’m still involved in my solo project Thee Hyphen, though since the creation of Celluloide, it became only a side project, and Celluloide takes almost all my time. Thee Hyphen should see an album released this year.”
PATRYCK: “My side project is called Beyond The Nightmare About Claudia. It's less electronic than Celluloide. Then, I've got a solo project as well where I write songs and sing in a different optic, that's where you can listen my Dead Can Dance influences. It's called Reminiscences. I also write the music for a theatre play in Paris.”

T.JONES: "Word association. I am going to say the name of a person or group and you say the first word that pops into your head. So, if I said 'The Beatles', you may say 'John Lennon' or 'Revolution'. Okay?"

T.JONES: "Massive Attack."
PATRYCK: “Tricky.”
DARKLETI:  “Liz Frazer.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Mezzanine.”

T.JONES: "Pulp."
PATRYCK: “Common People.”
DARKLETI:  “Oasis.”

T.JONES: "The Strokes."
PATRYCK: “The White Stripes.”

T.JONES: "The Stone Roses."
PATRYCK: “Guns and Roses.”

T.JONES: "Happy Mondays."
PATRYCK: “Happy Days.” 
MEMBER U-0176: “Hacienda.”

T.JONES: "Severed Heads."
DARKLETI:  “Dead Eyes Open.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Tom Ellard.”

T.JONES: "Stereolab."
DARKLETI:  “Daft Punk.”

T.JONES: "Trisomie 21."
PATRYCK: “Logical Animals.”
DARKLETI:  “B Movie.”
MEMBER U-0176: “See The Devil.”

T.JONES: "Siouxsie And The Banshees."
PATRYCK: “Happy House.”
DARKLETI: “Placebo Effect.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Into The Light.”

T.JONES: "Joy Division."
PATRYCK: “New Order.”
DARKLETI:  “Bauhaus.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Closer. Strange, my favorite is ‘Unknown Pleasures’.”

T.JONES: "New Order."
PATRYCK: “Blue Monday.”
DARKLETI:  “Movement.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Blue Monday.”

T.JONES: "Toog."
PATRYCK: “Tongue.”

T.JONES: "Momus."
PATRYCK: “The Mummy, by Anne Rice.”

T.JONES: "My Bloody Valentine."
PATRYCK: “Noisy.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Jesus and Mary Chain, don’t ask me why.”

T.JONES: "Dead Can Dance."
PATRYCK: “God.”
DARKLETI:  “Heavenly.”
MEMBER U-0176: “4ad.”

T.JONES: "The Wolfgang Press."
PATRYCK: “Amadeus.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Lonely is an Eyesore.”

T.JONES: "Princess Diana."
PATRYCK: “Purity.”
DARKLETI:  “New dress.”
MEMBER U-0176: “New Dress.”

T.JONES: "Favorite films?"
PATRYCK: “The Thin Red Line, by Terrence Malik. Twin Peaks by David Lynch. Lords of The Rings by Peter Jackson.”
DARKLETI: “Sex, Lies & Videotape.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Brazil.”

T.JONES: "Favorite books?"
PATRYCK: “The Witching Hour, by Anne Rice. The Mist of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Globalia by Jean-Christophe Rufin.”
DARKLETI: “Le Parfum by Patrick Süskind and Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.”
MEMBER U-0176: “L’ami du Défunt by A Kourkov and Voyage au bout de la Nuit by LF Céline.”

T.JONES: "Favorite painters?"
PATRYCK: “Dali.”
DARKLETI: “Dali.”
MEMBER U-0176: “AM Cassandre.”

T.JONES: "What has been in your CD player recently?"
PATRYCK: “Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy ‘Immortal Memory’, ‘The Hours’ (music from the motion picture) by Philip Glass, Madonna’s ‘American Life’.”
DARKLETI: “Camouflage ‘Sensor’, File Not Found ‘Malfunction’, State of
Synthpop 2003.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Ciëlo ‘Un Amor Que Mato Al Futuro’, And One ‘Agressor’,  Autechre ‘Ep7’.”

T.JONES: "What is the biggest mistake you have made in your life?"
PATRYCK: “Being selfish.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Losing time is always the biggest mistake.”

T.JONES: "The song 'Love Bizarre' is one of my favorites. How would you say that you love bizarre?"
MEMBER U-0176: “Doing synth-pop in a country where no-one know what it is.”
PATRYCK: “How to say what is love?”

T.JONES: Do you have any fetishes?"
PATRYCK: “Chocolate.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Analog synthesizers and sequencers.”

T.JONES: "Would you consider yourself a political person? What are some issues that you feel must be addressed and what your stance on those issues?"
PATRYCK: “I am not really a political person, but I feel responsible of the future of Earth and the children who will grow up in the world we'll left for them. I'm very anxious.”

T.JONES: “Turn ons?”
DARKLETI: “Discussions with friends by e-mail. Discover new interesting electro-pop bands.”
PATRYCK: “People who take too many drugs too often.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Finding a ridiculously cheap analog synthesizer for sale.”

T.JONES: “Turn offs?”
DARKLETI: “Being alone in a big city. Treason and hypocrisy.”
PATRYCK: “People who make me laugh.”
MEMBER U-0176: “Immodesty.”

T.JONES: "What do you think electronic music is lacking these days?"
MEMBER U-0176: “Audience.”

T.JONES: "What song would you like to cover that you have not covered yet?"
PATRYCK: “Old French pop songs you mustn't know.”
MEMBER U-0176: “None for the moment, but when we hear it, we know we have to!”

T.JONES: "Any future musical projects coming up in the future?"
MEMBER U-0176: “We’ll take our time to think about what Celluloide should sound like in the future, and work on that direction for a 3rd album.”
 
 

Label:
www.boredomproduct.online.fr