Laury had the chance to talk to Le Code, an ambient producer from France, around the release of his new album Urban Serenade. She discussed his name, his creative and writing processes, his goals and what’s coming next.
Why the name “Le Code”?
This goes back a long way. In 2011, I had an electro-rock band, and I wanted to explore more electronic ways. I was listening to a lot of synthwave, I liked those vintage sounds inspired by that 80’s fantasy era: the thematic, the visuals, the way the music was produced, I always had a musical preference for that period. So I was looking for an original name for a synthwave project, I wanted to start this adventure, which was never done, because in the end, I turned to minimal techno first, then deep techno. When I switched to ambient music, I kept this name: I didn’t want to start a new project and I thought that ambient was the logical continuation of all my previous musical adventures. So, Le Code, so frenchy…
What first got you into music?
I felt like I always wanted to do this: I listened to music at an early age because my parents listened to it too, so I was able to build up a solid musical background with some very popular stuff to start with, and then move on to more underground artists.
I remember I got a Bontempi synthesizer when I was a kid and already at that time I had “composed” little songs that I was very proud of 🙂
I saw myself as a radio host, singer, keyboard player… All this made me dream, and it never left me. It’s a difficult state to explain, I need to make music and create something regularly.
How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard of you?
I am sometimes confronted with this question, and it is always difficult to answer. Ambient is still a niche music and for people who are used to listening to the radio, it is difficult to understand.
I say that I make atmospheric music, without beat or voice, only instrumental music. Most of the time, people are intrigued and out of politeness, some will listen to what I do. What makes me happy is that most of the time, people who made the effort to listen to the music come back to me to tell me that they liked what they heard, that it spoke to them, that in the end they like this kind of music, sometimes even that it helped them to calm down…
That’s the best compliment I can get when that happens.
With your new album Urban Serenade, you decided to associate ambient with urban atmospheres. So far, your music was centered around nature so why this new topic?
Indeed, nature is very present in ambient music: artists often add what is called field recording (sounds recorded in the middle of nature), it gives a new dimension to tracks.
My previous album was called ‘Into The Wild’ and took up this concept: each track was accompanied by a different nature sound.
With ‘Urban Serenade’, I needed to renew myself: more nature sounds? Maybe there are other ways to explore? I always liked urban atmospheres at night and this sentence of Richard Bohringer (a French actor): “it is beautiful a city at night” remained in my head throughout the process of creation of this album.
I thought that urban sounds could have their place in ambient music: these are the sounds we hear every day, in our private or professional lives: integrating them to my tracks could give them an immediacy of listening, sounds on which the listener will be able to immediately root and enter more easily into the music.
I loved working with these urban sounds, and I think I’ll do it again in the near future.
Can you take us behind the creative and writing process for ‘Urban Serenade’?
When I started writing this album, I had some specific things in mind: I wanted tracks with less melodic parts, more soundscape and atmospheric. In the end, some tracks have melodic parts, because they imposed themselves to me.
In the end, the album was written quite quickly: I knew where I wanted to go in these urban ambiences where the night begins to rise on the city, and the artificial lights which light up a little everywhere in the landscape.
I used hardware synths like the Prophet Rev2 for deep bass, but also software soundbanks that allow to make these long ethereal layers.
What is your favorite song from the album and why?
It’s always a difficult exercise to choose the favorite song among all the ones we created: I’ll choose two of them.
For me, the track that opens the album and that has the same name as the album ‘Urban Serenade’ is really the musical atmosphere I wanted to give to this album : urban sounds mix with long atmospheric pads, it’s a little bit dark like the night that falls when the evening comes.
And then I really like ‘Stars between Skyscrapers’ which is a melancholic track: I like these little sounds that represent the stars while the bass chords represent the imposing skyscrapers, well anchored in the concrete.
Of course, the other tracks form a whole, and I invite the listeners to listen to the album as a whole.
Alongside producing music, you have a Youtube channel where you regularly upload videos of you using various music gear. What made you want to start filming these kinds of videos?
I hesitated for a long time before starting to make these videos: am I competent to do so? And am I valid to offer this content?
I did it anyway because I wanted to and I had the possibility to do it: I got incredible feedback, a lot of people commented on these videos, asking questions. So that reassured me about the questions I had at the beginning.
I also tried to make videos where I speak in front of the camera, and this exercise turned out to be less comfortable for me than expected. So I prefer to hide behind my synths.
With these videos, I feel like I’m conveying something at my humble level.
What are your biggest goals in terms of music as of right now?
Today, I feel that I have progressed a lot in ambient music, that I have accumulated a lot of knowledge to finally make the music I have in mind. This was not necessarily true 1 or 2 years ago.
Several people told me that I had found “my sound”, and that it had become “professional”. So I think today I’m ready to join bigger labels, and I’d like to make it my goal in the medium term. I have to keep on composing and this is one of my resolutions for 2023.
It’s a difficult path, because these labels are very much in demand, but with quality work, I think it could be possible. You just have to believe in it.
What’s coming next in 2023?
My main resolution for 2023 is to release a lot more music. I’m going to try to follow Spotify’s recommendations by releasing something every 2 or 3 weeks.the year is starting out well, I have EP’s and singles, as well as collaborations coming out over February and March. So I’m going to continue my efforts to put out more music.
I will also continue to post videos on YouTube but without forcing myself: it must remain a pleasure.
And finally, the livestream is an idea I’ve had for a year now, without having found the best solution to propose something qualitative… And maybe without having dared to start this exercise. But it’s something that attracts me a lot, I hope to be able to launch my first livestreams within the year.
Thanks a lot Laury for this interview!
Connect with Le Code:
Website | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify
