It means “The Monkey” as they are known to mimic things.
Lesinge
MUSIC . July 29th, 2020We are very thankful to release our second PREMIERE on WERTN. It is a breakbeat acid track produced by Lesinge, an electro producer living in Marseille. He has just released his new cassette project called Plic Ploc.
Hi Lesinge ! Who are you?
Hi ! I am a monkey, “Lesinge” starded in Glasgow where I used to live, now I am back in Marseille where I come from.
Is there a hidden meaning behind this artist’s name?
To be honest, when making music I am trying to produce the sound I like and have heard. I guess you could say that you do it with your own style and in your own way. But I thought to myself well before, or if people start to say I sound like X or X, I will call myself “Lesinge” – It means “The Monkey” as they are known to mimic things. But I also think that is what we are, some kind of monkeys.
When did you start producing music?
I’ve always liked electronic sounds. I think it already started with some sounds and music you could hear in the cartoons when I was a child. Then I realised that you could make all kind of sounds with a computer and some pieces of software. A friend of mine sold me at a very cheap price an old computer, since then I have never stopped.
Can you describe your music in your own words? And which artist influenced you to compose?
I don’t really know how to describe it, I tried but I usually don’t really know how to speak about my music.
My influences are of course Aphex Twin (Selected Ambient Works), Ceephax Acid Crew, LFO, The Railway Raver. Then with Bandcamp, you coud listen to a lot of very good music like Mrs Jynx, Missqulaqter, The Weather Channel, The Carrier Wave.
It seems that you really had a very marked acid house DNA to then get closer to others influences like IDM. What or who could have had this effect on your artistic choices?
Yes, but at the time of the older tracks, I was not really into acid and things. I actually started listening to the Rephlex Label and as I said, Bandcamp helped me to find a sound and a way to create tracks differently. Also, as you learn more about synth and DAW, it has an effect on your way to compose I guess. I think getting cheap old synth or whatever hardware music machine you can get always teaches you something, that you can after use in your music.
You spent a few years in Glasgow, a city with a strong rave & underground culture – Labels like Soma Records & some techno geniuses. Do you still think of keeping the imprint of this city in your music?
Glasgow is an amazing city, I really liked it. I think the welcoming and partying feeling really helped. Always something to do or a nice pub to have a drink. The music culture is so lively there. I miss the mood of the city, party life and easy going people can only help you to feel good and inspired.
What kind of studio / setup have you built since? Can you tell us about your last purchase?
I am always getting some old gear I can find in second hand shops, my set up is always changing, Last purchase is a Roland JX8p I was lucky to find cheap. I always want to switch to a more hardware based live set up but it takes so long, I end up with the easy way a PC Ableton with a launchpad and controller.
I got the Nepheton, Drumazon and Phoscyon Synth from D16, a VST’s editor, those are amazing. I also really like Synth1, you can do a lot with this free VST, it is a light on the CPU and sounds good.
Syntplant is a really inspiring one for random sounds.
Do you have your own process to produce a track? At what point do you know you’re finished with one?
I like to spend time programming sounds, so let’s say I got an old hardware synth or I focus on a VST synth and create a few patches (sounds). I then save a bunch of them, those sounds will help to find a melody or a mood for a song. I also use random sequence generator for a one bar loop and build the rest around it. Or sometimes I use a random sequence with a VST then work on the patch sound form there, this way you can end with different sounds.
What leads you to compose one day a dance track and another day a more relaxing track?
I think my tracks created on the computer are more melodic as working with a DAW make it so much easier to create different sections of a track. The ones more repetitive or acid are usually created on hardware, often around a MPC 1000 as the sequencer sometimes the sequences are created on Ableton the recorded on the MPC 1000. It’s a bit long to program what you want on this machine, but it has a lot to offer.
I like to use its different outputs, had a 303 clone and mix it with an old Yamaha DMP7, this mixer is great, it is one of the first digital mixer – Great EQ on each channel, 3 multi effects in the mixer, only 8 inputs. It is very bulky but sounds great !
In 2017, you released the cassette “Slide Blinders” on the Acid Waxa cartel and the track ‘Okdac’ on the “Wax Jackettes Volume 1” compilation of the same label. The label from Newcastle is known for the successful track ‘Emotinium‘ by Roy of the Ravers. How did you meet them?
There was this “Mono” pub in Glasgow which was also selling records and they had some cassettes too. I found the Acid Waxa released of Automatic Tasty, I then ordered some of the label cassettes and dropped an email with my music to the label. After a while and to my surprise, Slide Blinders was released.
Recently, you have released 7 tracks from a cassette tape – Plic Ploc. This will be your 2nd project on Acid Waxa. I’m keen to know how this came about and what the process in track selection was like.
Acid Waxa asked me to do a new release, they selected the tracks, I modified them a bit. Then we fixed little things on the tracks and agreed on titles. That is all there is to it. The selection and order of tracks was up to Acid Waxa and I trust them.
Can you tell us about this mellow & crazy track, Xioop, my personal favorite from Plic Ploc?
I wanted to use the microtonal feature of a Yamaha TX81Z try to program a sound that can go along with a melody creating with the Launchpad95 script which can create random melody. The track was built around it. The drums are 606 samples and the 303 are from a VST Silverbox. It is a 303 emulation I really like, the sequencer is great. The TX81Z’s tracks was recorded in audio and I had issue syncing it correctly, afterwards I tried my best to fix it.
We have noticed that an Acid Waxa gig at Le Sucre in Lyon was organised last summer with you, Your Planet Is Next and Goa Flashback? You were playing live, is that something you often realise?
Ho my, Le Sucre was fun and it’s a venue with a good sound, it was a good night except for the crash of my liveset. But I guess these things can happen when your performance is based around a computer.
I have not done a lot of gigs. I have done a couple of lives in Marseille and Paris with The Serendip Lab guys, very cool guys and parties. The last one was very cool in Marseille with Pob Orsk.
And I was about to be playing live for an Acid Waxa’s night in Paris with Musique Chienne, but it was canceled due to the Covid-19, hopefully we will make it later. I would like to do more, but getting things ready for a liveset is driving me nuts!
You have another more recent cassette project, from last year released on the Honey Club Records label in Bristol. How did it go, did you just send them a zip file with tracks already released?
I was contacted by the label who wanted to released some of my tracks, I was very happy to do it but I was surprised as it is mainly older tracks.
But I think it works well in the end, I am always ready to have some of my tracks released.
The few releases that you have been able to do are all on cassette; is it a personal promise that you imposed to yourself?
Not really, I think cassette were a great medium, they are tiny. You can still have a cover art and it’s cheap. It has this story with mixtapes, so it was not really a choice but I am happy with it. As I like the sound of cassette tape some of the tracks used on “Slide Blinders” were recorded on cassette which give quiet a low-fi sounds but also often the 100 % digital sound of the DAW.
What’s next for you?
I should try to finish some tracks and focus more on the song structure instead of constantly creating unfinished new ones. Work on a new live set, a lot of things to do actually.
Who is “Lesinge” when he is not playing on his machines?
I like to read independent comic books from the 70’s or 80’s, a bit of everything, except superheroes, saving humans, life or fight against villains does not do it for me.
What are your three musical shocks of electronic music?
– Ceephax Acid Crew – Fargo Coaches LTD
– Global Goon – Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
What movie, instrument and comic book was always with you during lockdown?
I was trying to watch as many movies as I could. One that was surprising was “Communion”, weird alien film with Christopher Walken. If you want to see dancing party with rubber Roswell aliens, this one is for you.
This Manga comic book is one of the best – Takashi Fukutani’s “Dokudami Tenement”. It’s the story of a poor young man in the 80’s looking for girls and always drunk. Incredibly trash stories.
I got a Digitone just before the lockdown, it’s a great machine still being updated and getting more and more interesting. I guess it’s not like the flagship instrument of the brand but with a simple setup it can do a lot. I am thinking of a way to use it as sound card for my Ableton tracks, then switch to hardware with Digitone and a couple of machine, while I could load the next track on the computer.
What are you going to do just after having answered this final question?
Put this song on and smoke a cigar while looking at the horizon far away – song link.
Lesinge is a Marseille based producer – Find him on Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Spotify and Facebook.
Credits / PREMIERE’s artwork : Astoria Diarra – Slide Blinders’s artwork : Broshuda – Plic Ploc’s artwork : Sam Tomson – Photos : Lesinge – Last photo : Londis Ploughmans
