Making Tracques And Rythmes

Stuart Price loves a good moniker. Over the last decade or so he's released work under several aliases but the main monikers he's focusing on at the moment are Jacques Lu Cont (his parodic French moniker), Tracques (recently releasing the moniker's debut record) and Les Rythmes Digitales (the focus for 2014). The many monikers are a reflection of his work ethic and spontaneous personality when it comes to music. Price is a man who loves to release music straight after it has been created, not four months down the track. “I feel like that right there is the whole point of doing music – is to not overthink it, is to go into your studio and open up your laptop or whatever and come up with an idea and whilst you're still excited about it, try and make a really short distance between that and actually finishing it and getting to play it out,” he says.

“It's weird because I feel like on some levels if you work on something too much or for too long, it sort of dies, even if you don't really change it… I believe a lot in the now and doing stuff on the spot. The worst that can happen is that it goes wrong and even if it goes wrong, the crowd loves it because they know you're trying to do something unique.”

The self-titled Tracques record has an off-kilter vibe with out-of-phase loops threaded throughout the album, most noticeable on a track aptly titled Train Tracks, which sounds like it's a mistake. This is something Price relishes. “There's almost no melody on that record, it's just a collection of tracks that are all about texture and dynamics and fun ways to play with the whole idea of dance music. Train Tracks – when I first started DJing I would see DJs who'd do that [out-of-phase loops, etc] a lot and some of them would blame it on the equipment and some would be so embarrassed by what had happened that they'd never recover from it. I thought it was cool to put it actually happening on a record and see if anyone would be brave enough to actually stand there and play it. No one has had the balls to do it yet (laughs).”

Releasing tracks under various monikers has provided Price with an outlet to release his original material whilst working on production for the likes of Madonna, The Killers and more recently on the Pet Shop Boys' new record, Electric. Given his spontaneity when it comes to releasing music, Price says “it's really painful” when working on production for other artists who don't release new material immediately. “Doing an album and then having to go through the record company and then realising that it's going to be three months until even a reviewer who's reviewing it before everyone else gets to hear it; it's painful.

“The antidote that I have for that is that with my own material – it's a lot more spontaneous. So when I did that Madonna album [Confessions On A Dance Floor], because it was going to be three or four months before it was even going to be heard, I was just doing a lot of remixes at the time, whether it be for her or Gwen Stefani or Missy Elliot – they were mixes that had a similar sound to the Confessions album had. For me, that was just a way of not having to slow down and a way of getting that sound out there.”

Price's moniker Les Rythmes Digitales will be the focus for 2014 with a record already in the works. “Over the last few years, all the tracks I've done have ended up being tracks for other people – like Kylie or Madonna,” he explains. “The ideas I've started have always ended up being re-purposed. So this year I finally had the strength and conviction to just hold onto it and put it into a record.”

And, as for Price's forthcoming tour down under for Jacques, punters can expect to hear “new ideas, probably for the first or second time I actually get to play it.” And, although keen to get on in the sun down under, Price is a little hesitant. “I go out in the sun and I come back paler than when I went out,” he says, laughing. “I think that's just like a thousand years of English blood.”