Arthur H, who claims not even to own a record-player, sings the "Net Surfer Blues". In an age dominated by techno and hi-tech recording studios, Arthur H has remained true to his quirky self, retreating to a ruined medieval castle with his rusty old Hammond organ to work on his new album. With the same old Mona Lisa smile playing at the corner of his lips, Arthur delivers his upbeat songs in his usual melancholy drawl. RFI/Musique recently caught up with Monsieur H in Paris and asked him a few questions about his new album and his career to date :

Arthur, your new album was recorded in a castle in Montéton. Where is Montéton exactly?
(Arthur H explodes in a fit of uncontrolled laughter, amused by the pun on the French name "Mon téton" - My Tit!) Where's my tit?! Well, that's one hell of a question! Montéton's a place in the south-west of France, not far from Marmande. I didn't really record the album in a castle - it was more like the ghost of a castle really. One thing's for sure, it wasn't Sleeping Beauty's palace! Up until recently trees were still growing out of the walls. Basically, it's an old ruin that someone's just finished restoring. I liked the idea of recording there. I'm sick of working in cold hi-tech studios where you walk round feeling like you're on the set of "Star Trek". It was nice to work somewhere with a warm, human atmosphere again...
Before going up to Montéton, I did actually wonder whether these different surroundings would make any impact on the way I played, whether recording the album down there would change the end product in any way. And it turned out I was right - working in surroundings like that not only influences your music, it also influences your way of listening and being in general. I mean, when you've got buzzards flying round the castle walls all day and you hear the old oak beams creaking in the middle of the night, of course it influences the way in which you perceive things.

Recording in an old ruin must have had an impact on your improvisations and the conception of the album as a whole...
I wanted Pour Madame X to be a lot more emotional and - musically speaking - a lot simpler than Trouble-Fête. One of my main aims was to hammer home a sense of rhythm and pulsation, to come up with a driving, repetitive beat similar to the one you find in African music and techno. The idea was to have this intense, throbbing beat which varied speed every now and then but ended up putting the listener into an altered state. I knew I wanted to lay a very sentimental European melody-line over the top of this, though, fusing the throbbing beat with emotion. It's really important to me to have these two very different elements running through my music.

I'd agree that your new album appears to be a lot "simpler" than Trouble-Fête, but you still manage to put across this image of being a bit on the crazy side... Do you mind the fact that the public has this image of you?
Well, I wouldn't say the public has any particular image of me. In fact, I can't say I'm really bothered about it one way or another - I really don't know what image I put across to other people. I guess it's fair to say there's a bit of a crazy side to me, but I'm not trying to capitalise on it or anything!
Personally, I've always loved Fellini films and the kind of shows where the red curtain goes back and the audience are suddenly bowled over by magic... shows where there's a real sense of intrigue and mystery. There'll always be this part of me which is just dying to put the poor audience under my spell... (Arthur breaks out laughing once again).

And what did you do to put Lhasa - the vocalist who sings Indiana Lullaby - under your spell?
I really wanted to record something with Lhasa, she's someone I have a lot of admiration and respect for. When I found myself with this song about a woman who's sitting at home feverishly warm, working herself up into a state of delirium while this terrible hurricane rages outside, well, Lhasa came to mind immediately.
I got the idea for the song from a book of old Russian folk tales I read a long while ago now. I remember there was this line which went something like, "Sleep, child, sleep, the wind's howling around outside but we're tucked up safe and warm in here." I liked the idea that there was something very protective and comforting about this image but at the same time there's also something quite disturbing and anxious-making about it. In any case, it's a very strong image. I started out thinking I'd write a song around it for my two young daughters - I liked the idea of turning it into some sort of lullaby. But I ended up changing my mind and turning it into a song with much wider horizons, the kind of song which could also appeal to lovers or an old woman.
Lhasa actually found it really difficult to write lyrics in Spanish for the song, so she ended up borrowing the words from an old Mexican tango.

We already knew you were a great fan of comic-strips - you proved that by calling your old group The Bachibouzouk Band. And now there's a song on your new album entitled Les Pieds-Nickelés (a reference to the legendary French 30s comic strip)...
Well, I was a big fan of comic-strips when I was a kid, but I can't say I'm into them at all these days. I think what appealed to me at the time was the 'pop-art' side of it all... What appeals to me in Les Pieds Nickelés now is that there's a really contemporary side to it, you can really relate to that sense of having to be resourceful in the face of adversity. I mean here we are in economic boom time again, with companies making bigger profits than ever before. But at the same time there are a lot of people struggling to make ends meet - in many ways, I think the conditions we live in are a lot tougher than ever before. Lots of people live in totally precarious situations, scraping through by doing odd jobs here and there. That's how most of the people I know live in any case. I mean, we're all aware of it, we read it in the paper every day, but the reality of it needs to be hammered home: the rich are getting richer while the poor are getting poorer - it's as simple as that!
And it seems to me that the system has never been so geared towards smoothing everything over with clichés and lies, and convincing people everything's all right when it's not. We're taught that the key to happiness lies in the curve of economic growth. I prefer other kinds of voluptuous curves myself!
But basically, to come back to Les Pieds Nickelés, what I'm trying to say on behalf of people of my generation is: "OK, we're going through shit times, but that doesn't stop us from trying to live our lives as joyfully as we can - even though that's actually pretty difficult to do."

You've been on three major tours of Africa, performing at local French cultural institutes across the continent. What are your best memories from these tours?
I still have these really crazy poetic images in my head from those trips. I keep having these mad flash-backs of musicians playing on street corners - they weren't professional or well-known or anything but they could really play! I remember coming across these taxi drivers in Lagos who'd get together and play to relax after they'd finished work - they'd be up all night playing all kinds of percussion instruments. What moves me most about music and what I'm looking to achieve in my own work is a certain kind of raw emotional energy - and I'm far from having got there yet! I'd love to be able to head off to somewhere like Bali or Java and find this emotional intensity in music on the other side of the world.
What do you find irritating in contemporary music?
I don't like aggressive music, the kind of music which - under the pretext of sounding modern - bores straight into your skull! And I'm not just referring to any one style of music because I think there are some really great things going on right across the board, whether it be in techno, rap or rock. But I do find that sort of 'release-of-nervous-energy' style a bit unhealthy really.

And what do you find good about contemporary music?
Well, it's very difficult to stand back from things and judge your own era, but I'd say there's a lot of inventiveness going down right now and an impressive range of styles. On the other hand, I think it's a shame that some of these new musical genres are limited to restricted audiences. There's a crazy number of albums being produced these days - there's a lot of good stuff, but there's a lot of very bad stuff around too. The big problem of our times is excessive consumerism - we're swamped beneath huge piles of records and books and it's difficult to sit back and enjoy something and appreciate it at its full worth. That's why I've gone back to classical stuff. I don't listen to much music these days apart from Debussy, Stravinsky, etc...

And, after ten years in the music business yourself, do you ever listen to any of your old records?
I'm a great believer in going forwards and never looking back... I did listen to a lot of my old songs recently when I was compiling a Greatest Hits album which was released in Japan and I ended up selecting very few tracks to put on it because I didn't consider that many of my songs had survived that well. I've always had this burning urge driving me on to find a perfect form of music, music which would be really simple, universal and yet utterly original.

You chose H as your surname to distance yourself from your father, Jacques Higelin's, career. But, now that you've made a name for yourself in your own right, do you think there's any chance of you two getting together in the recording studio or teaming up live on stage?
(Visibly amused, Arthur H attempts to answer this question with a straight face). Well, it's a delicate subject really because we're both very different people. My father's more of a 'solar' personality whereas I'm actually pretty 'lunar'. But the funny thing is, these days I'm getting 'sunnier', so maybe my father's actually getting a bit more 'lunatic'. (Laughs) I actually supported my father in concert in Tokyo once. And I'm not against the idea of teaming up together again - it would be fun! But I don't think we're going to make a decision on that one. I think we'll just let life take its course!

Arthur H / Pour Madame X (Polydor/Universal)