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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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Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
This album is great. This guy is the drummer of the Beach Boys, of course; good looking guy, good personality, special guy – intense person I guess. One day Guy-Man from Daft Punk, he came to my place and he said ‘I have something very special for you today’, and I said ‘what is it?’ and he said ‘an album, a fantastic album’. I was overexcited like, ‘uhhh the guy from Daft Punk was telling me he has something new – fantastic!’ It was this album, Pacific Ocean Blue. And so I pressed play on the CD Player and we listened to the entire album, together like ‘so good, so good’.

I love this album because it’s solid, it’s strong; it’s fake simple. When you listen to it you can say ‘oh yes piano, drums, okay,’ but everything is very precise. I think they thought a lot about the music before they played it. In a way it’s weird, it’s paradoxical, but it’s Pacific Ocean Blue, like surf music, I don’t know. But it’s a very intellectual album from my point of view. This album is done by the brain. And so I love this album because also it’s a mysterious album, man. I don’t know why, but it’s like there are some secrets; you can’t understand all the instruments sometimes, it’s very weird. There is a song like ‘Bruup bruup bruup’ I never understand what is the instrument that played that; it’s a mystery. So yes, this album is very important for me and just a very good album to listen to at home in your living room. It’s great – on the sofa, it’s perfect.