24 July 2015 (released)
24 July 2015
His youthful looks belie his 41 years, but Sven Hansen-Løve is a wise man these days.
He is the DJ whose life story is told in Eden (out on Friday July 24), a critically-acclaimed new film about the French touch clubbing and rave movement in Paris, throughout the early to mid-1990s.
Hansen-Love was a major player in this seminal scene; a house and garage DJ who took his hedonistic indulgences to the hilt.
In a Q&A with Film-news.com's Marcel Le Gouais, he revealed his experiences within Daft Punk’s inner circle, and how his friends evaded the authorities to set up illegal raves on the rooftop of Paris’s iconic Pompidou centre.
MLG: What kind of house/techno where you listening to as a teenager and in your early 20s?
SHL: “I was listening to really commercial techno when I was very young. The music I heard was not good! When I started going to rave parties I heard deeper techno tracks. I remember DJ Hell. There was something special about him. Jaydee – Plastic Dreams. Huge track. In the early first seconds of the tune you just hear the baseline. I could hear in that techno music something that was sensitive."
MLG: If you look at the early house scene in Paris, and the scenes of that time in London and Manchester – how do they compare?
SHL: “It’s always back and forth. First, there was the original electronic music – this was not music you can dance to. The Americans heard the early French electronic music and then Kraftwerk and they mixed it with disco. This music found its way to the UK and eventually, helped to start the Manchester rave scene. In the UK in the early 90s you couldn't set up rave parties any more because of Margaret Thatcher.
“The dance music promoters from the UK then came to Europe – so influences have been back and forth. The scene was bigger in the UK, in France it was small. In the beginning there were just 100 people – always the same people. They were not all French; they were American or British people, living in Paris or coming to Paris especially for the parties.”
MLG: Were those parties illegal or part of a club scene?
SHL: “It was a mixture of both. Some were illegal because they didn’t ask for authorisation, but the good thing was that the French administration didn’t know about it and the police didn’t show up, in the beginning.
“So it was possible to do rave parties in places you wouldn’t think of – like the Pompidou – there were parties organised by British promoters on the roof, it was incredible, in museums and famous places. After a while it became more difficult, because once the media started writing about it, the authorities shut us down.”
MLG: In the French touch records that were played at those parties, you can really hear the distinct influence of disco.
SHL: “You’re right, there’s a huge disco background in France, Thomas Bangalter (one half of Daft Punk) was really a disco producer. I think that in the sounds of the British house of the early 90s, there was something special that related to the cities, especially in UK garage.”
MLG: In Paris in the early 90s, you were part of a group of friends including Daft Punk, who were organising parties and DJ’ing, and creating seminal dance music records. Daft Punk appear in the film, though not in character, so how did you first get to know them? What were they like?
SHL: “I just met them when they started to making electronic music, when they were getting away from their punk and guitar background. I had a friend who was going out all the time and I was hanging out with him. He knew them and introduced me to them.
“They were two young crazy guys, a bit younger than me. They were very funny, always making jokes. They were something special already; there was an aura around them. Everyone knew something big was going to happen for them. Honestly, we all felt it, they were visionary. They knew what was going to happen.”
MLG: There’s a great moment in the film, at a house party, when Daft Punk are DJ’ing and they play Da Funk for the very first time to their friends. How did people react to those records when they first hear them?
SHL: “Very good but it wasn't crazy. They were not yet what they are now. They were just young producers. People reacted the way you would think of. We thought it was great but we didn't know they would go on to be massive mainstream songs. All those people who were there – now they remember.”
MLG: Why do you think Daft Punk have been so successful?
SHL: “They had a sense of how to make things larger than they are. They’re from an underground background of niche music, but they knew how to make mainstream music. They knew how to make things simple, catchy and how to find the right hooks.
“Their songs and Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You and Together (a classic put out by Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon); they’re all about hooks. They know exactly those segments of music to use - very brief segments - but they loop them and make them huge. That’s where you can see the Thomas Bangalter touch.”
MLG: The use of the word ‘French touch’ – when did it first come about? It sounds like a slogan a British journalist would conjure up.
SHL: “Yes I heard the same story as you – that it came from a British journalist. There is another reference though. There was a French label called F Communications, the label where Laurent Garnier was putting out his stuff, it was run by a guy called Eric Morand. In the early 1990s Eric had made a jacket. On the back of this jacket there was a label saying ‘we give a French touch to house’. Many people say it was the first time the phrase was used but we don’t know. The funny thing is that ‘French touch’ is now used for anything, you can see a commercial on TV about food or cars or whatever.”
MLG: EDM is now ubiquitous and massive in America; what’s your view on the legacy now of house and garage, and the popularity of EDM?
SHL: “Of course there is a lot of commercial crap but if you see EDM as electronic music that you can dance to, then there is some great stuff and new artists coming out all the time. Some of the young artists are really interested in the past and they try to do something different with it, more personal, which was the same as French touch.
“You have great music coming from all over the world so I wouldn’t complain. It’s great for young people who have so much choice, so much to hear and appreciate.”
