What is the common denominator between Starmania, at the Seine musicale until the end of January 2024, and Eddy de Pretto, whose album Heart crash is one of the winter’s successes? Between Juliette Armanet and Iliona, two of the most prominent singers of the moment? The big names Philippe Katerine and Chilly Gonzales? Bernard Lavilliers and The Marseillaise 2024 Olympic Games? A name: Victor Le Masne.
For all these projects and artists, the forty-year-old, who was part of the Housse de Racket duo, is in turn composer, musical director, arranger, musician, engineer, studio producer. So many labels that make him the shadowy architect of today’s French-speaking pop scene.
Unknown to the general public, he shaped the French sound of the moment. “What interests me is finding the right note, underlines the one who defines himself above all as “composer”. From sitting down at the piano, looking for chords and a melody that goes with it, that right note is right for everyone. »
Accuracy as a refrain
The right word, the right note… At Victor Le Masne, the notion of accuracy comes back like a refrain. A legacy of the rigor of the conservatory and its classical and jazz training, its “secret weapon”. “I have as much fun making a beat on a TR-808 as I do writing a score for a string quartet, he analyzes. It is perhaps this double culture that artists come to seek from me. In fact, I am quite “turnkey”. From the beginning of the production process to the end, I can help them. »
Above all, Victor Le Masne has no equal when it comes to unblocking complicated situations. It happens that an artist gets lost along the way when he embarks on a project, that he lacks perspective. The Frenchman Kavinsky, to whom we owe the tube Nightcall, popularized by the film’s soundtrack Drive (2011), turned to the composer to finalize his second album, reborn (2022).
“I had models aside and I was blocking them. It was Gaspard Augé, from the Justice duo, who advised me to go see him so that he could do what I couldn’t do. It’s quicker for me to whistle the melody than to play it. He knows how to do everything, play everything. And, since we have similar musical tastes, he always suggested things to me that went in the direction I wanted. It was a good time. »
“A real Swiss army knife”
With Juliette Armanet, for whom Victor Le Masne notably produced the album Burn the fire (2021), the meeting was also fruitful. It took place in 2017 on the tour of the French electronic group Paradis. He was a drummer, she was the opening act. “One day, I asked him to take over I Feel It Coming, The Weeknd’s song with Daft Punk and it started like that”, he explains. The title will be called I feel you coming. Victor Le Masne even appears in the clip, in a blue cargo shirt.
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