"I'm always really enthusiastic when I'm in the middle of recording a new album," Leforestier says, "I always feel like it's going to be the best album in the world. It's all about pleasure, the creative process and the profoundly sincere feeling that I'm doing what I love and doing it to the best of my ability. And then comes the moment of feedback, the moment when you have to put your songs out there - and sometimes they don't come back! The moment when you start asking yourself 'Is it the right moment?' 'Do I have the right image?' These are parameters I cannot know in advance." On the day of our interview Maxime Le Forestier looks serene, relaxed, satisfied - and even pleased to be fielding questions from journalists once again. And well he might! The first reactions to his new album from critics and industry professionals have been unanimous. Restons amants has been declared an exceptional vintage, dense yet somehow light and airy, rich on the tongue yet amazingly simple and direct.

After a period of intense productivity in the '70s and '80s, Maxime Le Forestier slowed his pace and discovered the joys of adopting a calmer working rhythm. In 1995 he recorded the album Passer ma route, in 2000 a follow-up album, L’Echo des étoiles - and then nothing since! Well, nothing apart from his Plutôt guitare tour, the writing of the stage musical Gladiateur and then the second instalment of his 'full and unabridged' version of Georges Brassens songs live in concert. Le Forestier has also been busy on the fund-raising front, taking part in the 'Enfoirés' tour on a yearly basis (to raise money for the feed-the-homeless association 'Les Restos du cœur') and appearing at a recent mega-concert at Le Zénith for a benefit gig for the AIDS charity 'Sol en Si.' Once he had played the final date in his Brassens tour in December 2006, Le Forestier put his nose back to the songwriting grindstone, penning eleven new songs and reworking Histoire grise (a song he had originally written for an album that Serge Reggiani never got to record).

Le Forestier wrote the music for five of the songs on his new album himself and commissioned music for the seven remaining tracks from friends: Julien Clerc contributed the music for two songs (including the title track Restons amants) and Manu Galvin, Alain Lanty, Michel Haumont and Michel Amsellem provided one apiece. Le Forestier made a series of simple guitar-and-vocals demo tapes in the comfort of his own home, then passed these on to his producers, Patrice Renson and Frédéric Lo. The pair then set out to broaden his musical palette, opening the doors to guitarists Manu Galvin, Matthieu Chédid, Michel Haumont and Eric Sauviat, the string section of the Opéra de Paris led by the first violin Alain Kouznetzov and Stanislas's Paris Pop Orchestra. The producers also included a series of brass and woodwind instruments and recruited Thomas Bloch on the 'ondes Martenot' and the 'cristal Baschet' and Albin de la Simone on Hammond organ.

It was at this point that the twelve songs Le Forestier had originally conceived changed radically from the simple guitar-vocals demos he had recorded at home. "Another language was superimposed on what I'd done," he says, "the language of arrangement, orchestration and sound. The version of 'Le Juge et la Blonde' that I'd sung accompanying myself on guitar is a million miles from 'Le Juge et la Blonde' on the album which was recorded with a wind quintet. It's like the arranger stepped in and had his own word to say." The song in question is a musical fable about a judge who steps outside his courtroom to smoke a cigarette (the famous 'blonde' of the title) and reflects on the atrocity of a man dousing a woman in petrol and setting fire to her because she enflamed his own senses. Julien Clerc had originally composed a simple Brassens-style melody for the song, but producer Patrice Renson put a 'circus' spin on it in the end, introducing  piano, snare drum and a fanfare of brass instruments which gradually step centre stage. By the end of the song, all you can hear is the tuba, two trombones and two horns with the faint sound of the 'ondes Martenot' weaving its way through the ironic fanfare. "That's the moment when the colours of the sound influence the senses," notes Le Forestier, marvelling at how his original "Brassenserie" ended up as Big Top comedy.

Le Forestier says he is pleased that musicians are "starting to take an interest in arrangements again and going back to using real instruments. The language is getting richer. It's not all about sound synthesis any more. Back when we made 'Ambalaba' we'd just discovered what sequences, repetitive loops and machines could do. But these days, we'll only use a synthesiser if it's a vintage 1974 instrument like Albin de la Simone's famous Helmut."

Le Forestier is due to hit the road again to tour his new album in October, playing a series of dates that include a run at Le Casino de Paris in November. He admits that he has yet to get down to work on live arrangements of his new songs, though. "The thing you have to ask yourself is: if you're going to do exactly the same thing on stage as you did on the album, why should anyone come to a concert? The songs on an album have a finished elegance that you only get in the studio. There's no way you can reproduce them with the same finesse live on stage. But the obvious advantage of the stage is you have the live presence. Live on stage one violinist can be more effective than fourteen in the studio."

Guitarist Michel Haumont will accompany Le Forestier live on stage with at least two multi-instrumentalists. "One thing I know for sure," says Le Forestier, "is that my songs can work as simple guitar and vocals because that's exactly how they started out. But there are other songs where certain elements of the arrangements play an absolutely vital role like the backing vocals on 'Né quelque part.' Whatever happens at the live shows, there's definitely going to be a guitar 'bloc' - and that's Michel and me!"