By Brendan Flynn.
Making your way to Yverdon to the Amalgame venue on a cold Swiss night (February 28) from the railway station of that lakeside city, through almost deserted old tree lined streets across a car park and into an old industrial estate, sent flashbacks.
Many gigs from yester year held venues secreted in old warehouses and pop up buildings. You only paid a few quid to see all kinds of bands.
Walking from the street to the venue, you are greeted by a rusty old caravan parked next to an equally rusted barn with paraphernalia strewn haphazardly outside it. As you approach the Amalgame which is old school in its appearance and size, you are almost stepping back in time. Indeed the venue and location could easily sit in 1990’s Berlin.
The crowd began to slowly trickle into the venue. Mainly avid Scratch Massive fans greet each other and conversations about previous gigs in Paris unfold. Even though there was a rumour that all gatherings of over 1000 people may be cancelled due to the coronavirus, most in the venue didn’t care. The Amalgame houses less than a thousand and as I said to one of the staff “the virus couldn’t afford to come to Switzerland any way”. This brought a wry giggle. Music fans are not the worrying kind when it comes to their favourite bands.
Tonight they are here to see Scratch Massive
The lights went down as the backing band Pyrit appeared from the dark like a spectral figure. The band turned out to be a single guy decked out in a scuba dry suit. Ok interesting! A backlight illuminated his wiry frame as he tinkled on his keyboard/emulator and projected twisted Aphex Twin styled sounds. Half the gathered crowd looked on bewildered, while the ears pricked up on the other half. He began to build up his sound with added guitar, which he played with hand and violin bow, then crashed two cymbals in front of him whilst tapping strings on his guitar at the same time with the drumstick. He then built up to a crescendo with pulsing tech and industrial beats intertwined with his high ethereal vocals. He was defiantly non-mainstream and one to look out for.
After all, holding an audience betralled to the end with rapturous applause was quite a feat. One that he accomplished with his self-belief and musical talent. After a brief break the crowd sensed that Scratch Massive was about to take the stage. Fans near the bar and the back of the venue shuffled forward with fevered anticipation and staked their spots at the front.
Sebastian and Maud walked on stage to rapturous applause. The crowd cheered as they started the eerily beautiful intro to Last Dance .
This almost eight minute version was a feast of retro 80’s infused mellow techno crammed with bursting fills and sumptuous swirling bass rumbles with an almost sad vocal sympathy to it, combined with Maud’s ghostly vocal samples, threw people in the crowd straight into a main course of musical gastronomy.
Scratch Massive don’t do starters!
Next up Fantome X, which slided effortlessly alongside Last Dance, all which showed the bands natural ethereal controlled chaos that seems to tumble into free-fall when the vibe hits.
Sebastian began by throwing his contorted body everywhere as he lives the vibe almost like a first time ecstasy user listening to Pink Floyd for the first time, while Maud stood, controlled and concentrated silhouetted against the lights bedecked in a red and black hoodie looking like Gillian Gilbert from New Order.
Next up were Soleil Noir. Which sent the crowd swaying as they began to warm up. The song had a simple complexity to it. Most of the best artists just instinctively know how to do a simple complex song.
Soleil Noir slowing faded out to simple drums and the haunting intro vocals of Waiting for a Sign slipped in, which then gave way to a more menacing drum and gritty EDM fusion. This combination was interspersed with early eighties mini-Moog type synth poured on top with twisting swirls of mutated synths. Those synths sounded as if you were spinning around the room with a speaker on a rope as it built to a stop.
Up next Pleine Lune. With its almost Jean-Michel Jarre “Blade Runner” like futuristic intro and beautiful riding a motorbike through a soundscape of an atomic wasteland with flowers growing on the side of the road colourful through the wreckage as you speed towards a sunset.
Dancer in the Dark came out of nowhere with its Depeche Mode/My Bloody Valentine vocals like a mermaid luring you into a dark brooding place. It then built up to a pleasing high tempo but still keptt its dark edge. It felt totally European. It reminisced and gave you a feeling of walking with headphones on down a crumbling east-European street at night looking at bullet holes in a building.
Prey burst through with hopeful hits and choppy skips. Soulful synths played with you and brought sunlight. It flowed and spiked with upbeat sine’s and led nicely into Event Horizon which just halted your flow and you just knew it was going to explode on the lift, but it played with you for a bit before synth and organ slowly teased you as “Chute Libre” burst forward. Sebastian was by then sweaty and 100% invested into the vibe like he always did. Maud directed the orchestra as the duo flowed in tandem. Chute Libre was drippy and wet and chunky as it slowly changed direction.
Numero 6. It was happy but doom laden synth sound took you back to a majestic vocal weave. Its quiet tech beats lifted you up all hands in the air as you closed your eyes, head down until its up. Its Skippy beats filled you with euphoria and cleaned your musical palette. Tasted the happiness’ like musical skittles in your mouth.
Closer seamlessly slides in on psychedelic Modular Trippy-ness. We were closer! Harsh but soft! Uplifting but angry! Pulsing but soft!
Let me feel your love. One More time.
Sunken then thumps in with its heavy bass drum and slow explosions of sound like air hisses along with jumbled vocals sung by Leonie Pernet all chopped up and sublime. Beeps and pulses carry the flouting vocals like balloons through the air.
A Girl on Top burst in to finish the night with a huge marching beat. If you were next to the speaker you could hear and felt the bass vibrations snaking through your body. It felt like a trippy trip down a very trippy lane and then running into traffic naked with a road cone on your head.
Scratch Massive are a very underrated band/duo which does not have to work hard at what they do as what they do they love and if you love what you do you will never work a day in your life.
Interview with Sebastien Chenut from Scratch Massive
What does your band name mean? And who thought of it?
We were looking for a name, like every start of a project. We had several music magazines from the UK we found in a toilet (in the toilet itself?) In the last pages of an issue it featured the worst and most wasted faces from the last parties of the last few months in UK clubs. One guy was particularly wasted, the picture title said “What a Scratch Massive crowd”. We thought if our music could make people be in this state it would be a good name to have.
Who are your biggest influences on your music and your life philosophy?
The eighties definitely!
How did you meet?
We met in a club in a coastal town in western France called St Nazaire. I was DJ in a club over there during the summer and we met there one night in 1999.
What’s the craziest thing you experienced?
The craziest moment was right after the assignation of Rafic Hariri in Beirut, in Lebanon. All the people were out on Liberty Square, it was an enormous crowd. We were playing down at the Palace of the president. After the ceremony and the meeting were over, the crowd moved over to our show. That was a very special moment.
How’s the tour going? And would you take your music to North Korea if allowed?
The tour is going great; we have been meeting beautiful and intense audiences, which always gives us the biggest buzz. We used to play a lot for dictators, so North Korea would be not a big deal for us. After all, music has no frontiers
What’s Your Songwriting Process?
It’s often really how a word sounds; that is maybe the most important thing for us. Sometimes it is as simple as collecting words and sentences when you read a book, then sometimes we put some of them together because we feel them and remember them.
Who do you sound like?
We all try to sound like our idols, so we try to do the same style first, then slowly you start to forget what it should sound like and how it feels to work a song your own way. I couldn’t say we sound like another band.
Who would you like to collaborate with musically ?
We would really love to feature on a track with Thom Yorke, Grimes, or maybe make the soundtrack of a David Lynch movie.
If you woke up tomorrow morning and found you where the last two people on earth? What would you do first?
I will say that we would be lucky to be the two of us rather than one. We would find some food and wine.
Have you ever had stage fright?
Absolutely! Sometimes before each show we still get it. But the most difficult time is in Paris, our city. When you know that your parents or really good friends are in the crowd…
When we are not touring we like to make some music and we like watching movies, take some time to see our friends and family. When we are touring, we are usually in a train station, an airport, or a hotel.
What’s your average day like when you’re touring and when you’re not touring?
When we are not touring we like to make some music and we like watching movies, take some time to see our friends and family. When we are touring, we are usually in a train station, an airport, or a hotel.
Do you fear for the future or are you hopeful?
Not very optimistic about it, we don’t really see good signs anywhere of something that is making sense as part of the evolution of our society. I don’t really have fear! I’m just sad about our evolutionary course.
Digital or analogue?
Both for better pleasure and enjoyment. We have a lot of analogue equipment in our studio in Los Angeles. Maud, in Paris, is working more in digital at her home studio.
Best advice you’ve been given and what advice would you give to young musicians starting out?
To never listen to advice first, to try go on with your own personal instinct of research and creation. Then step 2, you can then listen to advice.
What’s the strangest thing ever given to you by a fan or thrown on stage?
A Polyvox synthesiser in Vilnius Lithuania.
If you weren’t in a band, what job would you think you would be doing?
Probably making cool movies or working in an artistic creative way.
If the story of Scratch Massive was made into a movie biopic, who would you like to play you?
Sebastien: Ewan Mc Gregor.
Maud: Juliette Binoche ! A lot of people tell me we have some similar vibe.
Scratch Massive, the website it is right here.
