Irène Drésel, headliner of I love techno Europe in Montpellier: “my music has a safe haven”

Irène Drésel comes to defend her album Rose Fluo, not to be missed. DR

After an evening at the Comédie opera, Friday evening, the I love techno festival continues with the highlight this Saturday, March 30, at the Montpellier exhibition center, from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m.

You are defending in Montpellier, for I love techno Europe, and live, your third album, “Rose fluo”. How was he born ?

It is a logical continuation of the first two, in fact, it is a single piece. My albums are all 14 songs long and have the same length of one hour. I compose at home, in the countryside (in Normandy, Editor's note), to be concentrated and calm. My studio is in an old stable, I have a few equipment, a computer, a keyboard…

To the qualifier of techno floral, you prefer those of romantic and ceremonial, in the image the drawn cover where your head is in a rose… Fluo.

It’s true that the term techno floral always annoys me! For the cover, we have the image of the soft and bucolic rose and the more powerful fluorescent side. Until now, white predominated, but neon pink is my favorite color: it’s a luminous vibration. A simple neon pink decorative element in a house grabs me, attracts me like a magnet.

Techno, trance, catchy and heady melodies, the Irène Drésel touch does not change and the public feels good there…

I stay true to my roots yes. My music perhaps has a safe haven, a lot of people talk to me about it at the end of concerts. I also had a lot of feedback during Covid, she helped, I had messages telling me: "I was doing very badly and your music saved me’ ;rdquo;.

Even I, who come from the visual arts, when I started making music in 2013, I was not doing well, and there was a saving side, like medicine. In my compositions, I try to bring something catchy, to see life with a smile, I don't have a sad piece, even if there can be melancholy.

As on the song “Thérèse” where you whisper a prayer.

This is my favorite piece, the prayer to Sainte-Thérèse de Lisieux, it talks about roses, about “making the rain of flowers fall”. But there is a whole rather pious passage that I removed and if I speak, it’s just to whisper, not sing.

You are sold out almost everywhere, how do you cope with this growing notoriety ?

Well… GOOD. But if I didn't make music, I would do painting. Afterwards, I have never had a 100% techno audience, my proposal is hybrid, moreover, many tell me that they do not listen to techno and some that they don’t like it.

Your career was boosted by the César for original music for “À plein temps”, by Éric Gravel, in 2023, narrating the life of a single mother.

Receiving the Caesar was a magical and intense moment. It’s a film where the music embodies all the emotion of the character, who works in Paris while she lives in the countryside and all the stress she experiences for nine days. We feel the music! The mayonnaise has taken well, but I remain above all a composer of electronic music.

I have suggestions but I'm not going to do the same thing twice. Full time, that was the artistic intentions of the director, I would like a film with a great script that uses my music and my style, techno with melodies, something super relatable!

You are the first woman to receive this award…

It was quite moving to be the first woman, I received quite a few messages from young girls who, precisely, wanted to do this job, that gives an image, an example. Was there before a certain machismo? Without doubt, there are female composers, there are some all the same!

You rewrote one of your pieces with Jean-Michel Jarre, what did he bring ?

We met at a concert. I put in some vocals, he had taken tracks from Pierre Henri which he integrated… hellip; We both get along well.

Twelve hours of music at the exhibition center

Repositioned at the beginning of spring since 202, the I love techno Europe festival has found a second wind to bring this almost forty-year-old music into existence in the face of the rap steamroller.

The formula remains the same over three days. First on March 30, with “le” day-night meeting (3 p.m.-2 a.m.) at the Montpellier exhibition center which transforms into a giant dance floor for more than 10,000 people. There we find the César-winning star Irène Drésel (opposite), and the intriguing Guillaume Labadie, aka I hate models, the other headliner: hidden face, ultra-radical techno, his music boosted the Prada show at the recent Milan fashion week and the Southerner comes at the top of the artists that generation Z (20-25 years old) wants to see on stage (ahead of Fred Again and Jul), according to a study by Shotgun .

Mathame, Indira Paganoto, Who is who and Cosmic Boys are also there, as are the scene of new talents in the Metropolis and the mix booths (including that of My Life & Midi Free). 

Sunday, closing at the Tropisme hall with Doppelgang for the evening “Garçon Sauvage” orchestrated by LGBT figureChantal la Nuit. All the information on ilovetechno.com