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Baker's Dozen

Musical Delicacies: Sébastien Tellier’s 13 Favourite Albums
Rob Hakimian , July 15th, 2020 08:23

In this week’s Baker’s Dozen the French producer and songwriter tells Rob Hakimian about 13 albums from his youth and early adulthood that left a lasting impression on the way he makes, listens to, and visualises music.

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Daft Punk – Discovery
This is a wonderful album, it’s very rich. There are a lot of samples in it, so it’s a kind of tribute to all music; loops, beautiful parts of funk, electronic music. This album was a real shock. When Phoenix were going on their first big tour I went to the tour bus to say goodbye to my friends. But I ended up jumping on the bus and going on tour with them, I was just there with nothing to do, just as a guest, not on stage. I remember we received the Daft Punk album, it was a Sunday afternoon, we were in the back of the bus and we listened to this album. It was like ‘oh, I’m so impressed.’ OK, it’s music made with samples, but it’s totally fresh, it’s totally new – I had never heard something like that. It was like ‘wow, how did they do that?’ I was so impressed that when I listened to it I said ‘wow, that’s the best album I’ve ever heard. Nobody’s ever done that before.’ I didn’t know the first Daft Punk album, Homework, but the second one I was ‘oh, d’accord.’

So, that gave me the wish to work with them. So I worked with Guy-Man from Daft Punk to produce my album Sexuality, and it was great to spend time with them. I saw how they were specialists of music; specialists of synthesizers; specialists of drum machines. Real, real music lovers. When they work, it’s almost religious. It’s very serious. It’s very stable. I was impressed by the guys and by their music.