Dale Cooper Quartet & Dictaphones - Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones - A diamond with a black heart

Plenty of legends circulate about the Breton outfit Dale Cooper Quartet. Some speak of them with conviction as "the impro-jazz quartet led by Dale Cooper", others call them a "mysterious collective", and others still are unaware of the deeply rooted background that the three actual members hiding behind the name boast on their résumés. The former quartet, now a trio following the departure of Arnaud Le Gall, is in fact nothing more than the natural evolution of the Tank experience, a project straddling math-rock and psych-kraut led by guitarist Christophe Mevel. It was Mevel himself who had brought sound designer Gaël Loison and keyboardist Yannick Martin on board for some of his works: this is the Quartet's current line-up, to which the three regularly add, under the name Dictaphones, a handful of friends and colleagues, often partners or fellow travelers of the individual members in other projects. The information remains partial: the only certainty is that under this name, Denovali has released two splendid albums, including the masterpiece "Quatorze Pieces De Menace", for this writer the second-best album of 2013 and one of the most fascinating dark records in the whole impro universe. They themselves took care of explaining the rest, answering our questions together, without revealing who said what, as a true trio would. The whole thing unfolded as an interview that began with (for them) unexpected compliments and thanks, and closed with the promise that one day they would come to play in Italy.

Starting from the fact that, like many people, I too was convinced for years that you were a quartet led by someone called Dale Cooper, can you explain to me who exactly the Dale Cooper Quartet are and who the Dictaphones are?

I'll tell you, it's much, much simpler than you think: we started out as a live-only quartet, even though we'd already been working together for a while on various other projects (the first being Tank, led by Christophe Mevel, ed.). Then the "fourth" member (Arnaud Le Gall, ed.) left, but "quartet" sounded better than "trio", so we kept the name.

Already clearer. But basically, are Quartet and Dictaphones two different groups? Or is it the full name of a single band? How do you split up and organize the work?

The three of us (Christophe Mevel, Gaël Loison and Yannick Martin, ed.) make up Dale Cooper Quartet, and each of us has different approaches, techniques, moods and tastes. We do everything separately at first, then we get together with all the material and exchange ideas, maybe finishing off something one of us had left unfinished. Once we're sure we have enough material to work with, all three of us start composing together. We work like it's a puzzle, someone starts from the corners and someone else from the central image, it depends on the track. At that point, depending on how we feel about the songs, we decide which friends to invite to take part in the project, to play and give us further input: Dictaphones is exactly that, this ever-changing group of collaborators. It's not really a band, just friends who are close to our story: we'd love to play some live dates with them too, but that's a decidedly complicated thing to organize.

How important was it for you to end up recording for a large-scale label like Denovali?

Let's put it bluntly: they made us realize we could carry on after the first record. If we kept going, it's only because Denovali reached out and suggested we do it. So we owe them pretty much everything. As I told you, the first record was a kind of one-shot for us: after so much time spent on other projects of various kinds, we finally wanted to do something all three of us together. Today we feel we have total freedom, both artistically and in terms of time. And we're completely in tune with the way they run the label: they're simply fantastic, a real dream team.

“Quatorze Pieces De Menace” is your second full-length: you packed an incredible variety of styles, ideas and passions into it. How did you develop all of this?

As we already said, we've known each other for a long time, both personally and musically, and we know exactly which of us can develop certain ideas best. We share a passion for music that is our life in every sense, since all three of us are involved in several artistic and musical projects, and that's how we make our living. This helps us a lot, and that's why we don't worry, while recording, about when and how we reach certain results: we just try to do things as well as we can, that's it. And we take whatever time is needed to do that, even if sometimes that can mean really long stretches of time.

“Brosme En Dos-Vert” is a kind of journey within the journey, a structural summary of the album that nonetheless takes on moods and directions completely different from the other tracks. How did it come about?

It all started from the idea of making a strong, epic track, one that contained enough elements not to make it boring. While we were working on it, we realized it could be stretched out, and that it was the only track through which we could reach the lowest depths. At that point we were sure about the opening and closing segments, the departure and the arrival point: we built the path in between simply by assembling ideas and sounds, so that only the track itself knew where it was going. It also turned out to be the hardest one to work out and mix, but also the one from which the construction of the whole album began, since its nature as the “heart track” meant it could never open or close the tracklist.

Is there a common thread running through the tracks on the record?

I think it's the tracks that build the thread, not the other way around! There's no particular concept beyond the fact of being an album, rather than a random sequence of songs thrown together.

A friend of mine described “Quatorze Pieces De Menace” with the phrase “black diamond”, and I think it's a really fitting image, especially considering the cover art too…

That really is a beautiful image, actually. We wanted a third record that was as black as possible: the title, the cover art and the first track all point in that direction, not by chance, even if other tracks then move through climates that aren't quite as dark.

How did you develop your sound, from the pure jazz-improv of the first record to the amazing blend of this latest one?

Simply put, it's not the same band anymore, we don't have the same approach anymore, and I suppose and hope we'll never reach the point of playing the same music for eight years (laughs). I think it's crucial for the music itself to keep moving in different directions, to keep searching, rather than simply rehashing what others have already done in the past. Trying to push past your own limits is the most exciting part of making music: that's why we never play the same instruments, never use the same materials, never rely on the same recording techniques: we need to keep searching, and we need that creative process to remain unknown and obscure, first and foremost to ourselves.

Are the changes in your music tied to, or do they reflect, shifts in your tastes, moods and interests?

I suppose so, but it's also connected to the live performances and the sound we've had to find for them over these three years. It's a very different process compared to the studio - on stage we have much more defined roles.

Today, is improvisation still the key element of your music, or do you also rely on actual composed forms?

Both, we'd say - live it's almost entirely improvised, but we know where to start and where we want to end up from the very beginning. In live shows, Christophe's parts are completely improvised, while the rest of us mostly use samples whose structures can be reshaped on the spot. In the end, the three of us create spaces for the other musicians performing with us, which is why everyone needs to listen closely to each other. In the studio, though, at least when it comes to the core elements of the tracks, the music and atmospheres are composed in the classic sense of the term.

What does your instrumentation consist of, and how do you combine the use of different instruments?

On stage, oddly enough, we really are a quartet: two guitars, electronics and tenor saxophone. That's the basic line-up, to which vocalists or other guests are then added. We've tried changing the lineup several times, but the result never satisfied us, although we're still open to different experiences in that regard too. But this is the way we're currently able to make the tracks sound the way we want, without using electronics as playback but as genuine live performances. In the studio... well, we pretty much play whatever we feel like.

More generally, how do you put together your live performances?

As we said before, we have a regular line-up with which we try to perform a mix of recent and older material. A challenge, in short: we try to build our shows so as to create a different atmosphere with different pieces from different years.

Have you ever come to play in Italy?

Christophe and Yannick have, but with other projects (Pan&Me and Osaka, respectively). We'd definitely like to do it soon, not least because we were supposed to play two dates in Turin in 2011, which were then cancelled because of the storm that hit the city that year. We hope to make it happen before the end of 2014!

Do you have any other plans for this year?

Yes, this winter we recorded new material and we'll keep doing so through the spring. I don't know when or what it will lead to, but we're always on the move.

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