RFI Musique: You've been a busy man lately. After finishing up your L’Horizon tour at the Pompidou Centre, in Paris, and releasing your 'greatest hits' album Sur nos forces motrices (recorded live), you got straight back down to work writing material for not one, but two albums…
Dominique A: By the time I got to the end of the tour, I had a real urge to take my sound in a different direction. I felt it was time to do something more personal, more autonomous… What started out as simple working sessions and rehearsals, coupled with a bit of experimentation at home, gradually began to take shape as new material. But the only point where I was conscious of things having moved on to another level was when we were in the studio about to mix. There was never a point during the recording process when I consciously said to myself 'OK, I'm now making a new album.' I was just trying to push things as far as I could and then I started getting positive feedback from people around me. Everyone was saying "Go on, take it all the way!" Originally, I'd thought I was just getting together some raw material and maybe I'd get my musicians to add in drums and keyboards later on.

Interestingly enough, La Musique is an album where guitars are more or less relegated to the background…
My original idea had been to go back to using machines again, but do things my own way, you know, not have to stare at banks of computer screens all the time. At the end, I planned to pass the whole thing over to a mix specialist - Dominique Bresson, who accompanied me on tour and also worked on L’Horizon. I wanted to sideline the guitar this time round and work with keyboards, to produce something that sounds almost "anti-natural." I'm a bit fed up with that typical French acoustic sound where it's all about folk guitars and placing the mike exactly in the right spot. I wanted to use clapped-out synthesisers and old school rhythm boxes and record the electric guitars raw without running them through hi-tech speakers.

Isn't it a bit easy playing the nostalgia card and doing an eighties synth revival?
And isn't it all a bit self-indulgent? Yes, it is, but there's nothing wrong with that! Anyway, everything's self-indulgent, isn't it, even the blues! It's all a question of how you shape your inspiration. When I was playing I honestly didn't feel as if I was indulging some adolescent whim. It's more that the sounds I came up with took me back a bit. I fully assume what I've done.

Well, it's not particularly difficult revealing a secret passion for Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark or even Ultravox. But are there any more shameful skeletons in Dominique A's music closet?
Well, if you really pushed me, I'd admit to liking Patrick Juvet. But Katerine's already revived Juvet, so I couldn't have done Juvet or it would've looked as if I were trying to go one better!