Photo Credit: Guillaume Kayacan
Fabrice Lig is considered by his peers & techno fans around the globe as a world-class producer. He is well known for his particularly funky use of Roland’s SH-101 analog synth, and for his emotional and personal melodies and harmonies. There is no doubt that after more than 20 years of teaching himself production processes, complex midi programming, and harmonies, Fabrice’s sound is unique and recognizable among the thousands of weekly techno releases. Demonstrations of these skills appear on the crème de la crème of electronic music labels such as KMS (Kevin Saunderson), Planet-e (Carl Craig), Submerge, R&S, Third Ear, 7th City Records (Dan Bell), F-Communications (Laurent Garnier) , Versatile, Classic, Compost, Subject Detroit, Motech, Raygun, Playhouse Records, and more.
EG caught up with Fabrice Lig to learn more about the drop of his new ‘Cosmology’ EP on Integrity Records, his views on the current state of the scene, his workflow, and much more.
EG: Hi Fabrice! Welcome to EG. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us. Where are you based right now? How have you been?
Fabrice Lig: I’m still based In Belgium, in the countryside, close to Charleroi and I’m fine. Thanks for asking! ☺.
EG: Summer’s just about officially over. What have been some of your highlights?
Fabrice Lig: My highlights are my walk into the forest with my family and my techno dog, Oscar…I played a few gigs, and to be honest, nothing extraordinary to be mentioned, sorry.
EG: Congratulations on the upcoming release of your ‘Cosmology’ EP on Integrity Records! What has the initial reception been like?
Fabrice Lig: Thanks! Feedback has been really good and from different types of DJs, from Mandy, Jazzanova, and Gerd Janson, to YouAndme and onto Raresh, Marco Carola, or Laurent Garnier. And that’s true then none of those tracks here were done with the idea to make techno or house music. I like it when music is hard to peg into a specific style…
EG: So, what can fans of Fabrice Lig expect to find on these tracks? Is there an inspirational trigger to these?
Fabrice Lig: Globally, my inspiration is always turning around the feeling I want to create in the studio when I’m working on some new tracks. Find nice beats & rhythms to move your feet, emotional melodies & chords to touch your brain & heart, and some basslines to move your legs & ass ;-).
But I have to say that my way of working is a selfish attitude, as I do it first for myself…After that, I wonder if people will feel the same emotions then I had in the studio, which is a fully subjective thing. After these parameters, inspiration is probably life in general, my mood of the moment.
“I was really into the label since he first started it… I like to see a label on a global scale (its spirit, music, artworks and designs, and of course, the human side). Integrity reminded me of the pleasure I had discovering Indulge/Raygun records in the 90s”
EG: There’s an impressive array of ‘color’ throughout these four cuts. Was that something you had in mind from the offset for this EP?
Fabrice Lig: We built the EP with Eddie Niguel from Integrity Records. I sent him a few tracks and he proposed a track listing session to me. I felt it was a good one. He chose different tracks to bring a wide gamut of dance tracks. I really like to sometimes let the people bring their ideas on track listing sessions. A view from the outside is always interesting. Eddie knows his job, and I was in line with his choice. I think the feedback is proof he was right ☺.
EG: And how did your relationship with Integrity Records & Eddie Niguel come about?
Fabrice Lig: It’s a longtime friendship. First, from the outside, as a real fan of the label. I was really into the label since he first started it… I like to see a label on a global scale (its spirit, music, artworks and designs, and of course, the human side). Integrity reminded me of the pleasure I had discovering Indulge/Raygun records in the 90s. Eddie is someone with taste, intelligence & skill. It’s a pleasure to work with people like him. You know he will do the best for your music and you can sleep tight before and after the release ☺.
EG: Let’s step inside your studio…What does your setup look like at the moment? Any new soft or hardware implemented on ‘Cosmology’ that you’d personally recommend?
Fabrice Lig: I used to be an analog freak in the ’90s, probably for two reasons:
1. Having a lot of music gear gives you the feeling you have no limits.
2. Analog synths & rhythm machines are a nice piece of design, and I like design in general.
But, do those things really help?… I’m not sure. So, now I have an almost digital studio, but I still have some analog synths like the SH-101 (of course), a Shruti, Tetra, etc. But for me, technology is just a tool to make your ideas sound good. If I really like something to use in my set up, it’s the Soundtoys plug-ins. They are really creative, I like to use effects like a real instrument and they are perfect for that purpose.
EG: How do you keep entertained when not in the studio? Have you come across any good movies, books, or albums lately?
Fabrice Lig: I’m into too many things, to be honest. And I have to deal with it…To begin with, I’m a philosophy teacher in a secondary school, so that takes time, most of it. I also created a little animal welfare pedagogic program for all Belgian schools, so preparing all the contents is a huge task. I still make music and spend time with my family. And of course, I’m always reading books (ethics, philosophy, ethology, and pedagogy mainly). The last interesting one I read was a book by Romain Espinoza, ‘How to Save Animals’, a study about behavior psychology about how we are able to still make animals suffer in 2022, even if we like them. On the series side, I was totally into ‘Severance’. Something about it made me think about Stanley Kubrick’s style.
“At almost 50, I don’t know if I can have a view on some new milestones…It has to come naturally. I think I have done more than I ever dreamed of”
EG: What does a regular Monday in the life of Fabrice Lig look like? And a Friday?
Fabrice Lig: Ah, Mondays are blue for me ☺. When I play during the weekend in clubs, I still have to be in a classroom at 8.30 AM… I remember, a long time ago, I played in the US, and I had a special event at school on Friday evening, got a flight early on Saturday, played in Columbus on Saturday night, a flight on Sunday, and arrived in Brussels at 6 AM on Monday morning, and was in the classroom at 8.30… Had the same once with a gig in Tokyo…It’s a strange sensation, a bit like the weekend and the gig was just a dream. But, I think, it’s cool, because, it keeps you in touch with real-life…
On Fridays, it depends…Especially, on the weekend… Mostly working anyways…On gigs or pedagogic projects, most often both…Holidays are not good friends of mine ☺.
EG: By the way, what are your thoughts on the current state of the scene? What would you like to see more and less of?
Fabrice Lig: It deserves a whole night of discussion and with different points of view, from different people. But on my own, I mostly regret two things:
Like the whole society tends to, you have little DJs & big DJs…Some are not playing at all, and some do it for small amounts of money, some are playing a lot, and some do it for ridiculous amounts of money. But there’s no place in the middle like it used to be. (I was categorized in that “middle” tier). It’s something that started years ago, but festival development pushed it to the extreme I think.
Both are linked, but clubs have more and more difficulties surviving and inviting DJs… Low & middle profiles don’t bring enough people into the clubs and big ones are too expensive. So, except for some clubs with a solid and long reputation, the other ones have lots of difficulties to keep their heads out of the water.
Also, culture is changing…Going to festivals sounds more exciting for most people. Techno is just now a product in a supermarket (festival) and people get some by choosing a scene on the festival. For most people, hearing non-commercial music in a club doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s not really a critique, it’s a cultural evolution and a fact.
EG: What’s next for Fabrice Lig? What particular milestones are you looking forwards to now?
Fabrice Lig: At almost 50, I don’t know if I can have a view on some new milestones…It has to come naturally (like the collaboration on the last album with ex-Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flur). I think I have done more than I ever dreamed of.
Some milestones I have to reach now are more around my animal welfare programs because I still have a lot of things to do on that front. On the musical side, the next things after this EP on Integrity, are 2 EPs. A remixes EP of some tracks from ‘The Mental Bandwidth’ LP on Elypsia, and an EP on Kolombo’s Otherwise Records.
EG: Thank you so much for your time, Fabrice! We wish you all the best for the future.
Fabrice Lig: Always a pleasure for me, thanx!
Fabrice Lig’s new ‘Cosmology’ EP is out now via Integrity Records. Purchase your copy here.
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