Interview - SAISHŌ 最小
« Manifesto for a revolutionary sleep »
That evening (it was raining heavily outside), I randomly browsed bandcamp.com looking for something that sounded relaxing and soothing. Thankfully, I found myself with this one, which hails from Bordeaux, France. It is Saishō 最小 - a really cool project with several releases and musical styles that are mesmerizing and full of tranquility - "lofi synth minimalism" as written. There is quite a lot I want to know about it. For that, here is the Q/A session with Gabriel Berteaud.
Interview by Jiwa
[01] Tell us the history and background of Saishō?
Gabriel Berteaud: I released my first album « contre le travail » (against work) in March 2023. Therefore, Saishō 最小 doesn't yet have a long history. Creating this album took me about a year, and I have to go back another year to give this project time to mature in my body. This album may not deserve to be called an album. It includes 67 tracks for a total duration of 35 hours. In France, this is the legal working week to be what capitalists call "full-time worker". In reality, it's not that simple for the proletarians : many have to work longer while others have several odd jobs to pay their rent. When it comes to the length of a radically minimalist and repetitive music album, you quickly realize that it's almost impossible to listen to it in full, even in several sessions. I wanted to show the crazy amount of time that the bosses take from us each week, just so we have the right to live. If this is true in France, it is obviously even more true in the Global South. I'm talking about what I know from where I live.
[02] What motivated / inspired you to form Saishō?
Gabriel Berteaud: Before playing under this name, I did a lot of industrial / harshnoise / dark ambient music, stuff like that. Mainly under the name Mig Inc (which I still do) and in a lot of bands. At one point, I wanted to do something softer, more colorful, less manly - if that means anything.
Philosophically, I am inspired by the anarchist movement, to which I subscribe.
Reading the book « l’Apocalypse Durable » (The Sustainable Apocalypse) by Fred Dubé, a humorist and writer from Quebec, was something important. This book allowed me to become aware of the revolutionary nature of a restful sleep, which shouldn't be seen as a way to get more productive but on the contrary as time that we take back from those who would always like to take more from us.
Musically, I’m influenced by some famous minimalist composers like La Monte Young or Steve Reich, and even more by counterculture, underground, DIY, punk in the broadest sense. Playing instruments like the didgeridoo or the shruti box also played a role, even if to this day, I never used them as Saishō 最小.
[03] Explain in detail about the direction / style of your (Saishō) music and sound?
Gabriel Berteaud: If I stick to the form of my work, my main goal is to create radically minimalist music. To do as much as possible with as little as possible. When I'm working on a piece and I'm not happy with the result, I think about what I can remove rather than what I should add.
I usually start with a simple chord, sometimes just one, sometimes several, that I deploy over time in different ways. It can be a drone that I maintain throughout the piece, leaving it to the listener to build their own melody by focusing on this or that note or harmonic. I also like to layer arpeggios on different time signatures or different BPMs, creating a piece that flows like a river, always sounding the same and always different at the same time.
A big part of my work is also in sound processing. I start with rather cheap sounds and modify them until I get something that I find beautiful.
I apply a lot of effects. When you make such repetitive pieces, the slightest adjustments of the compressor, the EQ, the reverb or the delay completely change the result.
Besides their minimalist aspect, what all my tracks have in common is that they have a lofi sound, both due to the equipment I use and to old cassette or vinyl crackle effects that I add.
[04] What instruments, tools, gears you used in composing / recording tracks?
Gabriel Berteaud: The minimum. Because it's consistent with my music, and it's also a material constraint. I live in a tiny apartment and don't have enough room for hardware synths and mixing desks, which is not so bad because I can't afford them anyway. My laptop is at the same time my main instrument, my FX chain and my recording studio. I use tiny keyboard or knobs controllers to play virtual synths. I sometimes use my phone to record sounds like wind, streaming water, traffic or birds, that I add to my synths (this will be heard in some upcoming releases).
[05] What themes / messages / expressions you deliver through your music / tracks?
Gabriel Berteaud: As mentioned before, my most recurring theme is to position myself against work as capitalist exploitation. I defend the idea of a society based on mutual aid and self-management, without authority, therefore without bosses or any kind of exploiters. It is in this sense that taking time for oneself, to sleep, rest, meditate, or simply listen to music without doing anything else is revolutionary. Time is the only thing we truly possess, and it is in limited supply. To reclaim it is to reclaim everything that is taken from us.
My second album, "LaDoLaSi" includes four tracks whose chords are A / C / A / B. It is an anti-police easter egg that not everyone notices.
Being against work and against the police are two inseparable aspects of anti-capitalism, the police being the armed wing of the capitalists. However, the listener has the possibility of not paying attention to it and just listening. The music says nothing at all. I have these things to say about it.
[06] Tell us some of your (Saishō) best releases?
Gabriel Berteaud: I don't have so much releases yet, and most of the time what listeners prefer surprises me because it's not the work I'm most satisfied with. I would say my favorite release to date is my 3rd album Beat is Murder, a 16 hours ambient-drone collection.
[07] How do you see the future of Saishō?
Gabriel Berteaud: My hard drive is full of unreleased recordings, so 2025 should be a year where I will release a lot of stuff, sometimes on labels, including my own, "l'Abeille Cool", and also on my bandcamp page. Most of these albums will be shorter than before, listenable in one go.
Besides that, I would like to do more live shows, but that would require me to work on a consistent scenography, with visual art and a special installation for the audience, like mattresses to lie on to listen. Just being on stage and playing like in a traditional show would not really make sense. That's also why to this day, most of my live performances are made online, on my Twitch channel "Radio Nuage Noir". That way, listeners can enjoy as they please, but nothing beats a flesh-and-blood experience.
I recently released a collab EP with Paul & Manuel, a band that is not into minimalist music, but into eclectic electro made with instruments, vocals and loopstation. Recording this EP was really pleasant, so collabs with other artists could be interesting, It's not something I'm actively looking for, but I'm definitely open to it.
[08] Tell us a bit about L'Abeille Cool, and Nuage Noir?
Gabriel Berteaud: I created l’Abeille Cool (the Cool Bee) in 2018 to release on CD some of my works, as well as some friends bands & solo projects. I also released some compilations in which I gathered artists that I knew and appreciated, but who, not making the same kind of music, never found themselves together on a common project. I do not recognize borders, which are only an instrument of those who have the power to divide people, that is why I have always found it important to reject genres that separate artists who have a lot in common, as human beings.
But the CDs sold very little and cost me much more than they brought in. So I ended up stopping in 2021, due to lack of money, and l’Abeille Cool remained dormant for two years.
I started again in the summer of 2023. Now I no longer make CDs but only digital. I release single tracks for free download. When I have enough, I put these tracks together in a compilation, and I start again.
I also opened the label to artists from all countries - before that, there were only French and Swiss artists. In doing so, I needed to have a clear editorial line: l’Abeille Cool is an underground and antifascist music label. All artists are welcome, regardless of their music style, nationality, skin color, gender or whatever. Racist, sexist and homophobic artists are therefore not welcome at all. I also do not accept works that have a religious message.
Radio Nuage Noir is a web radio that I launched after a few attempts at Listening Parties on Bandcamp, which didn't work very well. I think that livestreaming is set to become more and more important in internet broadcasting. So I opened a Twitch channel where I only broadcast music (no videos or speech) playlists and sometimes live performances. The editorial line is pretty much the same, I don't only broadcast from my label but also from labels that are friends or that I like. The livestreams are then available in replay on l’Abeille Cool’s Youtube channel.
[09] Your opinions and hopes for Experimental / Electronic music scene?
Gabriel Berteaud: Big question! I don't think there is a unified experimental/electro scene, but a whole bunch of little islands that can be attached to it, without necessarily having a connection between them. It makes your question complicated without answering it with a whole book but I'll try.
If I take electronic music as a whole and not just its experimental side, these are exciting currents because they have really renewed the ways of making and listening to music, opening it up to non-musicians, or rather by creating new kinds of musicians. In this sense it has had, and still has, an important emancipatory role. The problem I see today, and in fact for quite a long time, is that it has developed a new form of academism, in complete contradiction with what it was at first. I mean the force of habits, which leads us to reproduce what seems to be successful, by eliminating the rest. It is not only for commercial purposes, I think that this process is largely unconscious. This is manifested by very cultured Djs, producers and listeners who have in their minds a huge catalog of subgenres and techniques, and who judge the quality of a music by their ability to place it in their huge catalog. In other words, if the music they listen to is not there, they conclude that it is not interesting.
If we consider, as I do, that art has an emancipatory role, we must be vigilant about this, by maintaining the love of being surprised, moved, shaken in our certainties and habits. The different currents of so-called experimental music have interesting things to offer to other genres. However, they must also do their introspection, because they are themselves concerned by what I am talking about.
There would still be a lot to say but I will stop there, I've already been too long.
[10] Please list all official links and email of Saishō?
Gabriel Berteaud: Thanks to Jiwa from Hidden Sounds for the interview. Thank you for reading. Please love yourself.
mail: use the bandcamp contact form or dm on facebook.
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