Interview: Les Yeux Orange

Ah Paris. Artistry flows through the city like the boats that float down the River Seine. Hemingway drank and wrote there. Jim Morrison spent the last weeks of his life there. The city is literally saturated in artistic history.

Les Yeux Orange is a concept that takes on a different form of artistry than Hemingway and Morrison, but it remains art all the same. Raphael Massin and Stanislas Besgard have worked built a vast amount of musical knowledge by visiting Parisian record shops and befriending fellow music enthusiats. This has resulted in a reputation for some of Paris’ best parties, and has led to the first release on their very own label.

I sat down with the Les Yeux duo to discuss the inspiration behind the idea, their first record purchases and the state of the Parisian scene.

How did the collaboration between Noctambulo (Raphael Massin) and Humangigz (Stanislas Besnard) come around? What was the inspiration for setting up Les Yeux Orange?

The funny thing is, we used to hang out years ago in a Parisian record shop called Phat Beatz without knowing each other. We met virtually at the same time, around 2002 or 2003, through the CBS forum, a community set up by I-F that gathered a lot of electronic music enthusiasts with crazy knowledge.

We started Les Yeux Orange in 2013 in order to share their mutual passion with other people and to become players in the scene.

It states on your site that both are keen record collectors, what’s the first record you bought? How has your taste in music evolved since then?

Humangigz : Steve Bicknell – Lost Recordings #3 When Things Of The Spirit Come First (Cosmic Records)

Noctambulo : Julien Jabre & DJ Gregory present Soha – Amour (Basic Recordings)

Since we first started listening to music, vintage late 70’s and 80’s cosmic, Italo, minimal synth and affiliates as well as electro have always been close to our hearts, but we opened up to techno, house, boogie, ambient, balearic beat, all genres really. Our DJ sets can vary a lot according to the place, the people and the time of day.

What was the YouTube channel that spawned the birth of Les Yeux Orange called?

Without sounding pretentious, there wasn’t really a particular channel that inspired us to start our own. The way it happened is that we became aware that a lot of the tracks we were into were not on YouTube, and we believed that they deserved more exposure.

How did you come into contact with LeonxLeon (Antoine Dautruche) and Alan Dente (Camille Bertin)? And how did that lead to you hosting parties?

We met Antoine way before setting up Les Yeux Orange, he used to go to the small parties we organised in Paris and he became a friend little by little. He quite naturally joined us when we decided we needed more manpower to take the project to the next level. Camille first met Antoine back in 2014, since they both release music through the same label (Red Laser Records from Manchester).

Antoine introduced him to us and he was the right fit for the job too. As Les Yeux Orange, we had already started hosting parties here and there before Antoine and Camille joined us, but shortly after we started a monthly residency at a new venue called La Rotonde and things started going off.

Just how difficult was it gathering an audience for the parties? And when was the first one?

We threw our first party at La Rotonde in January 2015, our guest was Vidal Benjamin. The venue was packed all night so we quickly realised its potential. With a reasonable entry price, cheap drinks, a good sound system and great music you have the perfect recipe for a memorable night.

The next parties were equally busy, it’s never been a struggle to gather an audience and the crowd’s always been amazing.

How do you feel the parties/events have evolved since the beginning?

Not much has changed really. We try to bring a different guest each time to keep things interesting, so far we’ve welcomed Vidal Benjamin, Yan Wagner, Albion, Sacha Mambo, Rodion, Ali Renault, Beppe Loda, Aroy Dee, Visonia (live) and Gatto Fritto. Recently we also tested a 100% Les Yeux Orange night, which went down a treat.

What was the name of your monthly radio show and when exactly did it begin?

Our monthly radio show never really had a name. We started doing it in January 2015 and at first we used to record it at Antoine’s flat. Since early 2016 we’ve moved to Le Mellotron which is an online radio as well as a bar in Paris.

What is the electronic music scene like in Paris? Is there a particular genre that reigns supreme? Any particular artists or labels that you admire?

It’s quite vibrant at the moment, there are a lot of new venues, labels, young promoters and DJs burgeoning everywhere and creating a new scene, which marks a significant turn compared to the past ten years. Techno is obviously still the dominating genre because that’s what the kids ask for.

We particularly respect the longevity of Versatile Records, and artists such as I:Cube, Gilb’R, or Cosmo Vitelli, who have been there from the start and somehow still manage to be innovative.

When will your own record label be set up? Any artists that you can tell me about that will be signed to the label?

It’s being set up as we speak. The first release is a four track EP named “Cold Fresh Air” by Wav Fuzz, a young and talented house producer from Portland, Oregon. It came out on May 30th and we’re chuffed to bits about it. We have a second release in the pipeline on a sublabel we’ll use for edits only, with the first one being two in-house edits of French hidden gems.

Is there anything happening within electronic music that intrigues or annoys you? If so, can you go into detail about it and how you feel Les Yeux Orange relates to it?

There is a kind of purism going among some DJs, which states that a real DJ should only play vinyl. We’re all collectors and buy a lot of records ourselves, and of course we love playing vinyl, but we disagree with this.

We live in a digital age and may as well use the possibilities that are at our disposal. We consider a good DJ someone who throws the right tracks at the right moment, and that’s essentially what makes a good party.

Any other future plans for Les Yeux Orange? How much potential do you feel it has?

The label has become our priority. So far we’ve been true to ourselves which turned out to be pretty successful, so we fully intend to carry on. We’d love to organise a festival sometime. We’ll see what the future holds.

Check out Les Yeux Orange’s SoundCloud account here.