Music

He recorded his new album with techno-polymath Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk
‘That’s the first time I had a record produced by somebody else. So for the first time I can be proud of my record because it’s not just mine. I can love my own music with no guilt.’

Although notoriously self-sufficient, he liked relinquishing the reins
‘For a musician to have a producer is like for a regular guy, when he has a job, he has a routine, it’s like: Okay, I know what I have to do. And so for me, with a producer, I find a job. It’s wonderful.’

Although he didn’t pick a producer for the normal reasons
‘Guy-Man is a very nice person – very cute you know, like a dog, you… [mimes scratching Guy-Man behind the ears]. He’s so cute, and I love him.’
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His album isn’t the sort of Ed Banger-endorsed techno-punk you’d expect
‘It’s not really music, it’s more conceptual, and I like that in music. Just music like that, “lala-la-laa”, I don’t hear it. For me, it’s not important. A great guitar player, for example, I don’t care about. I just search for concepts and the food for the mind. I can only do conceptual albums. A non-conceptual album is like a compilation. It’s like, if you read a real book, compared with a book of short stories.’

He’s big on concepts
‘I always try to find the most important subject. That’s why my previous record was about politics. At this time in France I thought politics give the rules to the world. Step by step, I discovered that sex gives the real rules. Even politics is the slave of sex. Maybe, later on I’ll find something else, a new master. But right now, the master of the world is sex.’

He’s an amateur sexual-sociologist
‘It seems a lot of people are kind of ashamed to live in the sexual society. But me, I’m very happy to live in the sexual society! Ha ha ! Because I love to watch and I feel very okay with the naked body of a woman, and so I want to kind of say thank you to all the people for sex. I want to talk about sex, but not like, for example, R Kelly. He talks about sex, but his music is really the opposite of that. I love sex as well, of course, but for me what’s important is the meeting between sex and feeling. What I want to say to the youth, is that to have a very, very good sex party you have to have some feeling. Even if you want to have some nasty sex, you need to have feeling to have good nasty sex.’

Despite having a big bushy beard, he doesn’t like big beardy bushes
‘Sexuality has to be sophisticated. To have a good sex party, you have to be in the mood. That’s why I made this sound. A very attractive record and a very attractive world, because that’s my vision of sex, it’s very glamorous. Before, I did some ’70s-type records, but I don’t want to have ’70s sex. Too hairy.’

He thinks great art is like an emotional mixing desk
‘My favourite art crossfades between something very light and something very deep. Because just deep, it’s very boring. And just light is okay for two minutes, but straight after you forget it.’

He’s the world’s first method composer
‘It is no fun to make a new record if you don’t change your mind. There’s no point in making a new record. So my work is not to play the piano or guitar, it is to change my taste. That is the only real art adventure. And so I am different to how I was before – with politics, I was somebody very serious and now I am completely freaky. Sometimes, I can feel real pleasure when I see a commercial on TV for example. But before, never. The commercials would make me angry. But now I can find beauty everywhere.’

He’s got the best idea for props since WASP’s exploding codpiece
‘We do a fake-fake show. Electronic performers stand on stage with their computers, not really playing but pretending to play. Well, we are constructing our instruments from cardboard. But underneath we are concealing our real instruments. So it will look like we are not playing, but really, we are.’

‘Sexuality’ is released on February 25. Sebastian Tellier plays Rough Trade East on February 20, and the ICA on February 21.