The southern sun beats down with impressive intensity as a lanky figure makes his way towards our table on a panoramic café terrace perched on the edge of Marseilles's famous "Corniche". This is the mysterious Snooze - a man who on a promotional tour of the same city a few years ago still went by the name of Dominique Dalcan! We begin our mini-interview by interrogating our suspect about his apparent need for a double identity.

"Well, the thing is with Dominique Dalcan I'm the one up front,"explains Snooze/Dalcan with affable charm, "I'm instantly recognisable and identifiable because I'm the one who's singing. But with Snooze I take a bit of a back seat for a change. Rather than me taking control of the mike, I get friends and guest artists to sing instead. Actually, I think it's only 'fair play' to warn the public that I'm not responsible for singing one single note on my new album at all!" And, staring out across the glittering blue expanse of the sea before him, Dalcan happily declares that "Snooze is like taking a bit of a holiday from myself, in fact!"
Dalcan's debut on Crammed Discs

When he launched his recording career in 1991 with Entre l'Etoile et le Carré, Dalcan put his own name to his debut album. Released on Marc Hollander's independent Belgian label, Crammed Discs, just before the summer of that year, Entre l'Etoile et le Carré was soon picked up on by a major label and Crammed Discs signed a license deal with BMG.

"I was the first artist from Crammed to be marketed by a major label,"Dalcan explains, "But these days it's become common practice – Snooze is licensed to Island and Bebel Gilberto's licensed to Warner, you know. But whatever happens, I'll always remain firmly attached to Crammed. It's a label where new things are always bubbling up and it's run in a true independent spirit. By that, I mean if you actually want to ring up and speak to the boss, you can! In fact, Crammed's artistic director is none other than Samy Birnbach (the ex-Minimal Compact star, better known as DJ Morpheus whose prolific compilations and eclectic live performances talk to dance fans' souls as much as their feet!) Samy's a breath of fresh air in the music world – he's someone you can talk music with rather than music 'business'!"

Dominique Dalcan forged an instant reputation with the music press in the early 90s, critics hailing Entre l'Etoile et le Carré as a truly impressive debut. The French TV and culture magazine Télérama awarded Dalcan's "ambitious artistic project" four gold stars and French music mag Les Inrockuptibles described Entre l'Etoile et le Carré as "an album which walks a narrow tightrope, juggling on-the-bone melody and velvet-smooth production." Meanwhile, French rock magazine Best praised the "haunting quality of Dalcan's melancholy lyrics (which, thank God, avoid verging on the suicidal!)" Best's critic went on to conclude that Dalcan's "subtle half-tone style promises even greater things to come."
Dominique Dalcan soon found himself cresting on the wave of success and, although he'd never seriously envisaged transposing his music to the live circuit, he was invited to open the famous "Trans Musicales" festival in Rennes in 1991. Dalcan came storming back into the French music news in 1994 with Cannibale (a second album released under his own name). Explaining the three-year gap between his debut album and the follow-up, Dalcan remarked "Basically, I need time to work. In fact, I need a great deal of time to concentrate and get down to business." Hence the need for his studio not to be located in a "luxurious environment" - "Otherwise I'd be too easily distracted and end up wasting my time instead of working!"

Split Personality

Over the next few years Dalcan went under cover but he eventually re-emerged on the French music scene in 1997 under his new pseudonym, Snooze. "I just felt like doing something else for a change," Dalcan explains matter-of-factly, "Becoming Snooze wasn't like an act of schizophrenia or anything, but a sign that I wanted to spread myself wider and dabble in all sorts of different things. The thing is, when I work under the name Snooze I adopt a totally different way of working – I invite people to come and work on projects I initiate and in that sense I assume the role of general co-ordinator rather than active participant. No-one gets upset when Norman Cook or Herbert launch different projects under various pseudonyms. On the contrary, both the press and the record-buying public are out there begging for more! So why shouldn't I take advantage of the same freedom? Actually, there's a real thread of continuity running between Snooze and the work I bring out under my own name – it's driven by the same curiosity and the same desire to mix acoustic instruments and machine breakbeats."

Friends and Guest Stars

Whatever the case, the Parisian "Man from the shadow" certainly demonstrates his multiplicity on his new album, inviting an eclectic list of guest stars to join him on Goingmobile. Erik Truffaz's bass-player Marcello Giuliani gives a star turn on Quiet Alone and Smile with a Knife and Leona Cataldo provides some superb flute-playing on Minnesota Mantalo and Brazilian Hat Trick. As far as guest vocalists go, Snooze has limited himself to an all-female cast, coaxing fine performances out of Nancy Danino, Nicole Graham, Juliet Elis, Charlotte Godard and Deborah Brown, a 58-year-old jazz singer from Atlanta.

"I wanted a voice which really conveyed the sense of having lived," Dalcan says, explaining his choice of Brown, "I'd originally thought about using an androgynous voice like Jimmy Scott's, but Scott wasn't available at the time. One of the best things about recording the new album, Goingmobile, has been the sense of working as a collective and a 'family'. I feel really close to a lot of the artists who've been involved in the Snooze project, especially people like Nancy Danino who'd already guested on The Man in the Shadow." Proof, after all, that there is some kind of on-going link between Dominique Dalcan and his nebulous alter-ego Snooze.

Squaaly

Goingmobile (Island/Universal)