Dreamy and alluring, Dissemblance’s distinct compositions are suspended somewhere between introspective melancholia and the shadowy edges of the human soul. The artful blend of different genres on her debut album Over the Sand (Mannequin Records, 2019) makes it one of the finest releases in the contemporary synth wave scene. Drawing inspiration from a universe made from asperity, she uses drum machines, enigmatic vocals, solid basslines, and field recordings to play with the unexpected. Dissemblance recorded a mix for us, in which she takes us on a journey through the various stages of her life that shaped her musical taste, from early raves in France to Karlheinz Stockhausen’s experimental work. At the same time, it can serve as an invitation to her live performance for the next Intergalactic FM Festival, as well as her forthcoming second album.

Good morning Dissemblance, I am ready whenever you are!

Hi Jonas. Okay, me too. Let's get on board!

Let's start with the 'in the moment' things. Where are you now?

The current restriction on inter-regional travel in France has been lifted, so I took the train to go to Annecy for a couple of days, in the middle of the mountains, to visit my parents and to get a change of air. Leaving a familiar urban landscape for a moment, and getting into a horizon close to nature feels good.

How is the morning in Annecy? What do you see around you?

Annecy is between the Alps and older lower mountains called Les Bauges. The weather is wet and the clouds are low. This puts me in a sort of a melancholy that I don't mind. We know that it will rise, and it always rises. As soon as the opportunity is good, I will go for a walk up in the mountains.

On a nice morning, it can look like this:

But now it's more like this, it has its charm too:

How long has it been since you saw your parents last time? I just visited mine after 8 months, and it's very emotional to see all the changes, how the home changed and how they've changed.

It raises a lot to come back to where you came from. I go back like three times a year. Family connections, and especially the ones to your parents, are something strong. It's important to continue to understand them and stay close as long as they are alive. We measure the time that passes, the health that becomes fragile and we adapt to their rhythm, in slow motion.

I see them maybe more than three times a year now as they are getting older. 5-6 times maybe but usually never more than 4-5 days. And I still have old friends here, so it’s balanced. They are changing, as the world is changing and getting fragile and unpredictable.

I've realised recently, and it becomes more and more apparent, that the more you understand your parents the more you understand yourself, all the characteristics they've put in you, with all the good and the bad things. It is very valuable both ways.

"Understanding the world is to see it outside your own feelings" says Susan Sontag. I really agree with this. There's a time to understand, then a time to act. But it's also important to be spontaneous, and act selfless.

How do you feel about local patriotism? Do you ever regret leaving, or feel that you've somehow let down the place you come from? Or that you've disappointed your close ones because you left? How do people who stay feel about those who leave their hometown in France? 

There's no regret about me moving away from where I grew up. People who stayed have their reasons and I had mine at the time. I got curious to see the world and I was ready for an adventure. Action is made of unexpected development and I always felt the need to continue to discover. If my own ideas become preconceived ideas, I have to move somewhere else. This is also how I see my music, and how I like to make it.

Was it mainly music which pushed you to move and discover?

Music has always talked to me deep inside and, in my early twenties, led me to experience electronic music at raves mainly in South of France, and clubs in Switzerland. I was driven by thirst for life and the community feeling that is dance music.

I was not really sharing this with the people I grew up with. So it was kind of a solitary development that made me move to bigger cities and I landed in Paris 17 years ago already. Since that time, I have been through a lot of different kinds of music. What I listen to and what I compose or play is changing.

For instance, among electronic and wave tracks in the mix I delivered to Endless Illusion, I've played a track from Stockhausen. And in the future album I'm working on, I'm using some field recordings with special effects. I like to use them as a first draft. The world's noises are full of melodies and not everyone can hear it. Those are experimentations and I like to take the risk to go where I haven't been yet.

So if I am not mistaken, it seems a lot is changing and shifting in your creative process and as you've said it, 'action is made of unexpected development'. But is there anything you keep the same all the time?

Hahaha! Yes, I think I'm trying to choose an axis and follow it no matter what it crosses. Staying loyal, imaginative, empathic. I always like to sleep, to play music, to be in love. I believe in the importance of the elevation of education and I think we have duties and responsibilities regarding it.

Things have to change, people have to know. It is important to find a good rhythm to create and to be a part of the world. I'm trying to keep this in mind, trying to be true to myself.

It sounds like you are the kind of person who is able to draw inspiration from everywhere. What has inspired you, besides music, the most lately?

I appreciate that the world is destabilized, an entire organization is challenged. This led me to have more time to think and to look around for good news. I'm supporting actions that are emerging collectively and locally. I got some ideas also by reading philosophy from authors such as Vladimir Jankélévitch “Quelque part dans l’inachevé” from 1978, or Jean Giono “Regain” (Second Harvest) from 1930, who has written about the Provençal peasant world.

Simple and solid things interest me more than usual. I discovered the architect Paul Rudolph (pictures) and I've been watching some documentaries from Harun Farocki, for example his "As you see" from 1986. This one is about the industrialization of thought and the ideology of technical progress that is deconstructed here.

In this 1978 loft for plastics manufacturer Gary Strutin, Rudolph wraps up the sloped wall surfaces with floor carpeting, giving this interior landscape a soft, yet monolithic quality. Interior design by Cloud Rich; photography by Jaime Ardiles-Arce.

You've mentioned you are working on a future album. Can you tell me a bit more about it? Do you know when and where will it come out?

Yes, I’m working on my new album that is in progress. It will be done soon and I will first submit it to the label that welcomed my first album in November 2019, Mannequin records, founded by Alessandro Adriani.

Recently, I was asked to join the Intergalactic FM festival. This helped me to finish some music. It will happen on 2021, May, 21-22-23 and it’s gonna be my first solo live set. Unfortunately, most of the shows will be broadcasted because of the pandemic. This particular situation can bring us to think about an original way to transmit, and I thought about a special scenography: all sorts of plants invade my tiny Parisian flat.

Vegetal Scenography by Marianne Guedin.

* The conversation took place via facebook messenger between 9:13 and 14:15 on Friday, March 22, 2021. Jonáš Verešpej.

Tracklist:

1. Bob James - Macumba (CBS, 1982)
2. Elektriktus - Power Allucination (1976, Wah Wah Records, 2011)
3. Ruins - Boys and Girls (1981, Stroom, 2019)
4. Band Apart - Jaguar (1981, Crammed Discs, 2019)
5. Beau Wanzer - Don't Eat The Ground (L.I.E.S. Records, 2019)
6. De La Cave - I can do nothing (Compost Modern Art, 2010)
7. Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury, DROKK - Exhale (Invada Records, 2012)
8. Geoff Barrow & Ben Salisbury, DROKK - Dome Horizon (Invada Records, 2012)
9. Alan Vega - Deuce Avenue (Edit) (Musidisc, 1990)
10. Mecanica Popular - Conceptos Básicos (1987, Electunes, 2010)
11. Karlheinz Stokhausen - Fais voile vers le soleil (1968, Harmonia Mundi, 1977)
12. Daughter Produkt - X ray crystal (Self Released, 2021)
13. Panasonic (Zoviet France Remix) (Sahko Recordings, 2020)
14. Philippe Doray, Asociaux Associés - Musique pour résidences secondaires (1980, Souffle continu, 2020)
15. Drexciya - Sighting In The Abyss (Kiti808 Extended Edit, 2014) (UR, 1995)
16. Bill Vortex - Kit Polini (Serendip Lab, 2017)
17. DJ Overdose - Meltdown Is Imminent (RotterHague, 2018)
18. Wally Badarou - Chief Inspector (Vine Street) (Island Records, 1985)

How long has it been since you saw your parents last time? I just visited mine after 8 months, and it's very emotional to see all the changes, how the home changed and how they've changed.

It raises a lot to come back to where you came from. I go back like three times a year. Family connections, and especially the ones to your parents, are something strong. It's important to continue to understand them and stay close as long as they are alive. We measure the time that passes, the health that becomes fragile and we adapt to their rhythm, in slow motion.

I see them maybe more than three times a year now as they are getting older. 5-6 times maybe but usually never more than 4-5 days. And I still have old friends here, so it’s balanced. They are changing, as the world is changing and getting fragile and unpredictable.

I've realised recently, and it becomes more and more apparent, that the more you understand your parents the more you understand yourself, all the characteristics they've put in you, with all the good and the bad things. It is very valuable both ways.

"Understanding the world is to see it outside your own feelings" says Susan Sontag. I really agree with this. There's a time to understand, then a time to act. But it's also important to be spontaneous, and act selfless.

How do you feel about local patriotism? Do you ever regret leaving, or feel that you've somehow let down the place you come from? Or that you've disappointed your close ones because you left? How do people who stay feel about those who leave their hometown in France? 

There's no regret about me moving away from where I grew up. People who stayed have their reasons and I had mine at the time. I got curious to see the world and I was ready for an adventure. Action is made of unexpected development and I always felt the need to continue to discover. If my own ideas become preconceived ideas, I have to move somewhere else. This is also how I see my music, and how I like to make it.

Was it mainly music which pushed you to move and discover?

Music has always talked to me deep inside and, in my early twenties, led me to experience electronic music at raves mainly in South of France, and clubs in Switzerland. I was driven by thirst for life and the community feeling that is dance music.

I was not really sharing this with the people I grew up with. So it was kind of a solitary development that made me move to bigger cities and I landed in Paris 17 years ago already. Since that time, I have been through a lot of different kinds of music. What I listen to and what I compose or play is changing.

For instance, among electronic and wave tracks in the mix I delivered to Endless Illusion, I've played a track from Stockhausen. And in the future album I'm working on, I'm using some field recordings with special effects. I like to use them as a first draft. The world's noises are full of melodies and not everyone can hear it. Those are experimentations and I like to take the risk to go where I haven't been yet.

So if I am not mistaken, it seems a lot is changing and shifting in your creative process and as you've said it, 'action is made of unexpected development'. But is there anything you keep the same all the time?

Hahaha! Yes, I think I'm trying to choose an axis and follow it no matter what it crosses. Staying loyal, imaginative, empathic. I always like to sleep, to play music, to be in love. I believe in the importance of the elevation of education and I think we have duties and responsibilities regarding it.

Things have to change, people have to know. It is important to find a good rhythm to create and to be a part of the world. I'm trying to keep this in mind, trying to be true to myself.

It sounds like you are the kind of person who is able to draw inspiration from everywhere. What has inspired you, besides music, the most lately?

I appreciate that the world is destabilized, an entire organization is challenged. This led me to have more time to think and to look around for good news. I'm supporting actions that are emerging collectively and locally. I got some ideas also by reading philosophy from authors such as Vladimir Jankélévitch “Quelque part dans l’inachevé” from 1978, or Jean Giono “Regain” (Second Harvest) from 1930, who has written about the Provençal peasant world.

Simple and solid things interest me more than usual. I discovered the architect Paul Rudolph (pictures) and I've been watching some documentaries from Harun Farocki, for example his "As you see" from 1986. This one is about the industrialization of thought and the ideology of technical progress that is deconstructed here.

Vegetal Scenography by Marianne Guedin.