With "Big Data" Antoine Lang teaches how to turn nightmares into sound dreams
PHOTOS BY N.C. LINNEMANN
Antoine Lang, originally from the France-German border in Strasbourg, experienced a culturally rich upbringing with a diverse musical influence.
His educational journey took him to London and Switzerland before finally settling in Berlin in the late 2000s. In Berlin's vibrant music scene, he co-founded his inaugural indie rock band, made up of talented musicians from Germany, France, and Australia, alongside his childhood friend, the illustrator Adrien Weber.
However, as is common in the life of musicians, a musical break occurred during a stay in Paris. It was during this interval that he emerged under the pseudonym DeSaintex and presented two EPs, "Je vois, je crois" (2019) and "Effigies" (2020).
His most recent material is "Big Data", a song that arose from a singular encounter, during a night he spent at a friend's cabin, he had a disturbing nightmare that ultimately became the impetus to create the song.
We talk about this and more with him in this interview which will leave you wanting more.
Antoine! Thank you for sharing a bit of your time with us here at TML. How are you doing?
Hi, I’m doing thanks! Busy as the release approaches but good :)
Tell us about yourself. How was your life growing up in France? Do you recall any special stories about your childhood?
My name is Antoine Lang, I’m a French singer-songwriter and producer based in Paris and I will release my first LP ‘Big Data’ on November 17th.
It’s the first time I’ll release music under my real name. Before that album I was releasing EPs and singles under the pseudonym DeSaintex and before that with bands.
Growing up in France was great and I have tons of stories about my childhood because I had a peculiar one haha. First, because my parents come from two different regions with very different habits and ways of being: one is from Marseille, and the other is from a small village in Alsace. It’s in itself a stylistic opposition a bit like someone who’d grown up in New York versus someone who’d grown up in Southern California, if that works.
I spent my teenage years living with my dad but I was always at my grandmother’s with my cousins in a small village. I loved it though. It seems like I had a city childhood in a relatively big city (Strasbourg) and then a countryside teenage years, playing soccer surrounded by fields, feeding the neighbors’ chickens, and being very free in the end. Since then, it still feels like I’m stuck in the city in Paris while actually belonging to the countryside.
What made you pursue a career as a composer and musician?
My first vibrating memory about music was at home on weekends or evenings when we were putting an album on the player. We would barely talk until it was finished, doing our things on our side like reading, cooking, and working. That was a real experience of listening, almost like a meditating state. I could really feel the power of it. Then like lots of teenagers, I was digging into advertising music on the internet, series soundtrack, and bits of radio too.
One day a friend once lent me an acoustic guitar and I was playing on top of my favorite CDs at home. I learned music by myself without really telling anyone at first. It was my little secret garden so to speak and quickly I started writing my first songs and compositions. I loved it, I could spend hours without going out of my room doing it. I preferred doing this rather than playing video games haha.
Then I wanted to play these songs with real people and thought: if I found people to play them, it means it’s not that bad. And if no one wants to, maybe that’s not meant to be. I found these people a few times and kept on doing it. It’s a mix of stubbornness and natural expression for me after all. It’s funny cause I don’t see it as a career at all since I always feel like a pure beginner. Even with more years and experience, I still look for that teenage feeling when I write a song. It comes from the same place.
In the early 00s you alongside several other talented individuals came together to form your first indie rock band. What can you tell us about that particular experience?
Exactly. That was a very interesting experience.
I was 21, moved to Berlin with my best mate whom I randomly met (he was living in Glasgow at that time) the summer before on a terrasse in our hometown. I told him about my idea to go to Berlin for a sort of creative break. I knew the city was cheap, and that I could work in a cafe, and learn German and I just felt ready to try it. He was so enthusiastic about this that he decided to join me. 3 weeks after that he found a flat!
Then we looked for musicians and step by step found the other members of the team in order to form a quintet. At that time, Berlin was full of musicians from all over the world keen on rehearsing and playing hard. We found a rehearsal room for cheap and tried to play as much as we could in order to get better and better. We really played all the existing clubs in the city. That was insane haha! A local journal was making fun of us about this.
As we wanted to record our music, someone told us about the Aussie producer Berkfinger, an ex-member of the band Feelings, who took over a beautiful studio in Kreuzberg. He welcomed us nicely and we recorded our first EP there. I kept in contact with him for a while, he then moved back to Australia and collaborated with amazing artists such as Courtney Barnett or The Internet.
After that, you started experimenting with your sound and switched from indie rock to synthpop. What made you do such a drastic change in genre?
After three years of this, I was fed up with playing indie rock music every day. I think I started my compositions with this genre because it was not ‘complicated’ music and it was my teenage crush in some way. I also realized that it was possible to sound good in French too, and to give more meaning or interest to my songs in my mother tongue. To sum up, I thought it was time to grow up musically.
The fact that it ended up as synthpop was a bit hazardous. I wanted first to be able to demo-ize my own songs on a DAW and tried all the inner cheap plug-ins of my software. 505, 808, fake Moog, and so on. This is how it ended like that.
That’s also why I kept my pseudonym: I knew it wasn’t going to be well-produced. It was more of an attempt than a definitive oeuvre. Funnily these metronomic sort of cheap sounds were the trends at the time in France and it allowed me to be discovered.
You've released many EPs and singles. Do you have a personal favorite? That one comes to mind when thinking about past endeavors.
I still like the vibe of my first EP ‘Je vois, Je crois’ because it’s so honestly made and naive. In terms of production, I would never do something like this anymore but that’s the proof that the intention remains more important than the technique when it comes to creation.
What can you tell us about your upcoming album "Big Data"?
Big Data is first of all my very first LP and I'm so grateful I managed to do it and release it. This is a 12-inch album that features a variety of genres, colors, and topics.
It is a cartography of my moods at times that were full of mixed feelings and emotions. I was at the same time very lost: the world went lockdown, I had broken up with my girlfriend, I had no idea if I would be able to continue doing music and perform, and suddenly I also had all this time to introspect, I was being surrounded by caring friends, staying in a place near the wood and the sea, progressively fell in love again.
Having a bit of a distance now, I feel like the album itself is highlighting this exact experience of going from this confused place I was into to trying to reach the light with all that there is in between.
This is also why I’m amused to say this is ‘my big data’, this is what I openly share with the world from my own experience. Take it or leave it.
At that time I was also reading so many things about the fact that most big tech companies could know when we’ll die regarding our use of their platform that I needed to ironize about it.
You worked alongside Gautier Vexlard and Anatole Wisniak in "Big Data." What was it like working together?
This collaboration happened in such an organic way.
We were locked down together, we had lots of time, no deadline pressure. It felt like making music like when we were teenagers but with skilled and experienced musicians in such a professional environment because both of them have studios. I wonder if we’ll ever get the chance to do music in such conditions again, to be honest.
Moreover, Anatole sent me a few bits and beginnings of compositions at a very early stage and one day one of these struck me (Paris l’hiver) and from that moment the exchange between us went constant. However, we didn’t know until very late that we were doing an album.
Gautier on his side co-produced three songs but his engineer ability helped us go much further in the pre-production process be it for the mixes or the vocal production. He also managed to give a third eye on everything when we were missing distance.
Next year you will perform the album at Pop-up du Label in Paris. We're very excited to hear about this! In what ways are you preparing for your performance?
Yes, it’s a great venue in Paris where I saw many great concerts, especially for new artists from the US, Canada, or the UK. Part of the Pitchfork Festival takes place there as well.
I want the live to be really alive and musical and rock’n roll in the energy. I want it to be memorable and I want the audience to sweat. Onstage, we’re going to be a minimum of 4 with Gautier on the drums, Anatole on the Bass, and Moog and Pierre on the guitar and synth - and me as vocal and guitar. The setup will be a bit like the live sessions I just released recently: Big Data Live / Zuzana Live
I’m also very happy that I invited Flora Hibberd as the opener, she’s such an amazing singer-songwriter!
That's all the questions I have for you today. Thanks once again for being with us Antoine! Would you like to add something else?
My pleasure, thanks for your curiosity!
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