Album of the Week: Danton Eeprom ‘Yes Is More’

Album of the Week: Danton Eeprom ‘Yes Is More’

19 February, 2010 | 7.44AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, danton eeprom, fondation records, infine music

Danton Eeprom is having a busy day, in what is surely his most successful ever month as a recording artist.

“I’ve done about 10 album of the month interviews so far and the reaction has been pretty amazing,” he says, as the throb of London traffic and the pitter patter of rain upon the city streets punctuates his rushed sentences.

The conversation stops, as he asks for directions. “Gotta turn left up there love, then cross over and do a right,” replies a faceless lady.

Danton jumps back on the line, “Sorry about that, I’ve just come from the Russian embassy to get my visa, and now I’m off to another embassy.”

We continue. “I was kind of wondering how it would go down as this album is quite diverse and pretty different to what I’ve done before,” he says.

That is probably the understatement of the year.

With soft rock, ambient instrumentals, singalong guitar anthems, minimal techno, tripped out downtempo jams, and even a cover of Sister Sledge, it seems the Marseille-born producer has thrown everything into his debut album ‘Yes Is More’.

Yet this is no mud slinging attempt at eclecticism. Disparate influences it may have, but ‘Yes Is More’ does much more than pay lip service to the roots of its maker. It’s everything that Danton Eeprom wants to stand for.

In electronic music circles, Eeprom’s image is that of a quirky French minimal techno producer - a DJ, who took the sound of Berlin, and warped it into an ever-more eerie and head-spinning hole. His ‘Grindhouse’ collaboration with Radio Slave from 2008 dripped with menace, like a Rohypnol-touting attacker in the shadows.

But ever since Dust Art, his very first band in school, Danton Eeprom has been split between the stage and the club, between guitars and drum machines.

“When we did Dust Art, we were influenced by people like Nirvana and Alice In Chains, as grunge was big at the time,” he says.

“Then we started playing with synthesizers and our sound switched into something more progressive. I hated prog rock when I was growing up - it seemed like cheap and nasty music for 35 year olds with no jobs and long hair.

“We didn’t consider ourselves prog rock, until one day someone pointed out to us that some of our tracks were 10 minutes long.”

Danton Eeprom factors his two-faced approach to making music as a consequence on his generation. “We used electronic instruments by default, out of necessity. It was easier to find a drum machine than it was to find a real drummer or a real bassist,” he says.

“When I was growing up, it was obvious that electronic instruments would take over. They are all over pop at the moment, for example.”

Whilst most DJs would rather eat a 12-inch than work with guitars and a band, Danton Eeprom’s solo electronic music career began precisely because he was bored of working with bands.

“In a band you have fights all the time, like the guitar player wants to become the singer, or the bass player shagged the drummer’s girlfriend,” says Danton.

“I got sick of all of that, so I decided to go solo for a few years.”

That solo stint saw Eeprom release straight up club tracks on labels such as Tsuba, Freak N Chic, Mood Music, and his own Fondation Records, but after five years of beating his own drum, he decided to go back to what “I do best - making songs with a band.”

Danton Eeprom’s first live performance with his new band - “they play my songs as accurately as they can - that’s what I hired them for” - took place on French TV show Ce Soir Ou Jamais in January. The band played one of the album’s more accessible tracks, the uplifting rock flavoured ‘Thanks For Nothing’.

“That was a pretty exciting show and it was fully live,” says Eeprom. “We had only rehearsed twice before that show, and the band was completely new, so it was pretty rock & roll, but we played it perfectly.”

In many ways, ‘Yes Is More’ is Eeprom’s attempt to break out of the mould. “I don’t want to have to make a choice between the club stuff and the rock stuff,” he says. “That’s what keeps me alive. If people expect a new Danton Eeprom record to ‘sound like this’, then it will get boring very quickly.

“Some producers stick to the same recipe hoping that it will eventually lead to success, but with me, once I’ve done something, it’s done.”

Needless to say, Danton Eeprom hates narrow mindedness. So no ‘Grindhouse Part Deux’ then.

But fans of Eeprom’s wonky minimal techno need not despair just yet. ‘Yes Is More’ does contain a few club focused techno cuts, like the hypnotic ‘Tight’, which sounds like a return to the finest funk virtues of minimal, and the late night groaner ‘Stilettos Rising’, as well as Eeprom’s 2007 club smash ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’. 

Just don’t expect Danton Eeprom to explain the meaning or messages behind some of his album’s more unorthodox leanings, such as the mystical Chloe collaboration ‘The Feminine Man’ (a tribute to metrosexuality?).

“I have nothing to really say about my music, people can read into my tracks however they want,” he says. A cryptic response, but no doubt an easy one when faced with London’s crowds, “the f***ing rain”, and the machinations of visa officials.

Similarly, we’re told to read into the album’s title ‘Yes Is More’ whatever we want. Its cover art depicts a well dressed man upon a horse with a dangling penis.

Eeprom’s collaboration with Au Revoir Simone’s Erika Forster needs little explanation though. Their delightful cover of Sister Sledge’s ‘Lost In Music’ is an uplifting pop and rock hybrid, and bears a healthy similarity to Florence & The Machine’s cover of Candi Staton’s ‘You’ve Got The Love’.

Fans of Radiohead’s experimental melancholy will enjoy ‘Vivid Love’, a sad yet curiously optimistic ballad that hides behind distant melodies, moans, and electric guitar noises.

The album ends on happy note with ‘What’s A Balloon, But A Bag of Air’, a soft downtempo guitar moment, carefully laced with accordions and celebratory synthesizers, presumably because ‘Yes Is More’ might be Eeprom’s finest work to date.

“I have to go now,” says the Frenchman, as he heads towards what will no doubt be the most successful stage of his career thus far.

‘Expect the unexpected’, he would have said, if he had the time.

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