It’s been over five years since Jackson Fourgeaud released his first full-length album Smash on Warp Records and it’s safe to say that we still haven’t seen anything match quite up to its standards yet. Jackson & His Computer Band‘s obscurely mashed up sound is unpredictable, strange and inconsistent but has managed to keep listeners on board and wanting more from the day Utopia was released. His activity has been mysterious to say the least, aside from some performances and remixes here and there such as the smashing remix of Kavinsky’s Pacific Coast Highway most recently. Luckily, we had the opportunity to talk to Jackson in Amsterdam and caught up on his current work with regards to his new album, contemporary music and virgins in parking lots.

TRUANTS: What are you working on right now? JACKSON: My album! I think it’s ready to come out in like six months. Not more than a year. The recording is going very well so far. I don’t really know how to describe the sound because I don’t want to talk bullshit, so I’m just going to that I never know until it’s really over. There’s a lot of different phases and that’s why the way I work takes so long. I’m very much into oppositions and contradictions, which means that if I have an impulse or desire I want to give myself all the possible options of exploring them. So even if I want to do some kind of Mexican arrangement or doom metal kind of stuff, or like a Bee Gees production, I want to give myself that opportunity. So yeah, until the last minute I can’t really know myself.

Did you figure out a title for the album yet? Oh no, I don’t know! The title and the introduction is the last thing to do. I learnt this at school, it’s one of the few things I learnt at school. You do your intro at the end, haha. Yeah, I’m not too cool for school, but I’m the new school. So the new school is beyond cool.

You’re known to have a very specific attention for detail, do you consider it a gift or a curse? This is something very feminine in me, it’s my feminine side and I’m not afraid of it! Life is a matter of detail. I don’t believe in simplification. I think it’s a great idea and it’s an ideal to simplify everything, but my life is a matter of detail. In my relationships, in everything. It’s is how I deal with life. A little detail with someone is going to turn me down, or get me excited. I don’t have simple objects of desire, I never know what turns me on.

What about visual art? You were into visual art for a while, weren’t you? Not really. But I did the artwork of my own album, because otherwise I had to pay for it. My record label would not pay for it so I had to do it myself. Will I do it for the next album again? Maybe, unless I have money.

What inspires you when you’re writing your lyrics? Well, it depends. Like for example, there’s one that is called Oh Boy. I wrote it when I was on a trip with my sister to see my grandmother in France. I started to drink some pastiche and I started to watch television with my sister. I kind of wrote the lyrics then. The vocals on the song were done by my mother and my niece. So the song is kind of like a collaboration with all the women of my family—my grandmother, my sister, my mom, and my niece! As for the lyrics themselves, it’s all about this character called doctor Strong. He was actually this guy who makes documentaries on trash and doctor Strong is kind of like a rich Japanese tycoon. But one of my inspirations for this was also doctor Snuggles. You know doctor Snuggles? It’s this comic book, he’s fucking awesome! He’s kind of an inventor that lives with a giraffe and magical creatures. It’s fucking funny. They even did a cartoon of it! The inspirations for my lyrics are very childish. It’s all about childhood! Childhood is where innocence comes from and innocence is the closest thing from perversion.

You’ve worked a lot with family in your work, especially your mom. How is that as an experience? With my mom, I didn’t see it as very personal. I think she has an amazing voice, she’s very accessible, why would I bother and put a lot of energy in looking for people where I can use my mom? And you know, when I did Utopia, she actually came to have dinner at my place and after the dinner I was like: “Do you mind trying something? I have some kind of idea.” and that’s how it came out.

Don’t you feel uncomfortable with the crossover between your family and your own music? Well, I like this anti rock and roll dimension of it—it’s totally anti-generation conflict. It’s like anti-rebellious, somehow. When I was doing Utopia, it was not that I was a perfectionist. I was basically doing orientation and research on discovering music making, on my own with a computer. I didn’t have a prepared idea of conception, it was just random and natural. It was more like a quest, it was research and exploration. I didn’t have a perfect image of what my song should be, not at all. So I actually don’t think I’m much of a perfectionist. Maybe there is detail in the music but the detail comes from a sort of excessive desire for possibilities. It’s more of an excessive desire of options, than a conceived approach.

Which of your own compositions are you most proud of? Well, I’m not such a proud guy to be honest. There’s not one thing I’m extra proud of. It’s just a fucking proposition, so the only pride you get is from people being excited about it.

Your DJ sets are a lot different from your production work, how do you go about approaching them? I like irregular stuff. For me it’s a matter of urge and tension. If there’s tension and accidental moment, I think it’s cool. Also in correspondence to the whole concept of party, amusement – I feel sometimes a bit embarrassed by this recognised concept of presets for fun. Fucking around with that is actually a lot of fun.

What would you consider a good DJ set? I don’t believe in a slow party – a party has to be dramatic. Like 2ManyDJs—they’re amazing, they make fucking amazing sets. Justice are good, they have great shows. And then you have other low-key DJs, that are not in this kind of showing off control. People like Soundstream for example. You get more into this underground DJing style, what’s going on in Berlin basically. It’s all about emotions and expectations. And it’s how you deal with the expectation. For example, when SebastiAn dropped Threnody, he was having a conversation with the expectations of the audience, and where he’s at in his career. It’s a matter of the moment. He said something funny to me. He told me that in the beginning people were like “Why are you playing this?!” And now people ask him like “Why DIDN’T you play it?”. He’s playing with the limits and the boundaries of his language, which is quite interesting and fun. Threnody in general is a very interesting track. It’s kind of about the death of somebody. I think he’s trying to say it’s the death of this distortion sound.

In the end, it’s like fashion. DJing is to artists what perfume is to Gucci. For some people it is a medium, people just express good stuff… I think it’s a difficult medium to say interesting thing, and I think there are a few people who use it as a good instrument.

What’s does your dream party look like? My dream party is all about improvising, wherever. Maybe the perfect party is in the supermarket, you know, or the parking lot, or the toilet.

Your next album release party is going to in a parking lot, then? It’s one of my dreams to have a party in a parking lot, actually! My first rave party was in a parking lot, it was in a suburb of France. I went there on my own because I was very impatient to go to rave parties and I had to lie to my parents, I had to tell them I was going to sleep over… Because I was like fifteen. And so I went on my own to this kind of like rave party, and the cops came over and I couldn’t come back home, so I had to continue and I met these people that had a rave in a parking lot. But yeah, a release party. And girls could lose their virginity in a parking lot. It sounds kind of raw but if I was a woman I would be attracted to this contradiction. This contradiction of what is supposed to be my dignity.

What is your take on the electronic music that’s currently out there? We are basically in a situation where you have guys that want this sort of brutal anger kind of thing, and girls that wanna dance to house music. There needs to be a combination of both. So one good thing to offer would be something brutal but sensual and somehow romantic. Maybe Clarke is into that somehow, maybe he’s in this zone. His stuff is quite deep, it’s like emotional, but it has this kind of like power to it. And I think SebastiAn is going to go places, definitely. Right now he’s doing this very kind of like masculine powy thing but I know he’s going to do. He’s going to come up with something a bit more like funky and RnB.

What are you currently listening to? I like Late of the Pier. A good live act is Deerhoof. Planning to Rock, she’s English living in Berlin. She’s good. What else? The Doobie Brothers. I have nostalgia to everywhere, for sure! The thirties, the fifties, the sixties, but I’d also love to be a Flintstone. I would love to be in the jungle! With bugs. But I’m not unhappy with today’s world, I don’t really want this established gesture about our time. This is such a gimmick. Our time is exciting and we’re living in a condensed period of time.

Are there any acts you consider overrated at the moment? I don’t know, really. I don’t really hate. Like with Steve Aoki, why would someone have something to think about Steve Aoki? Steve Aoki speaks for himself. There’s no need to think about it. He’s a successful entertainer and he’s successful at what he does, there’s nothing to think about, there’s no idea behind it. And like with the Bloody Beetroots, I mean, everybody hates them, but they’re okay actually. They’re not too bad. You know what I like about them? They did a cover with Liberatore, a cartoonist, one of my heroes, a fucking legend. Big respect for them because of that. Liberatore  drew a comic book named Rank Xerox, about a robot that is completely ultraviolent but is in love with a fourteen year old junkie that’s a prostitute, in a futuristic role. And Rank Xerox is this ultraviolent like, robot monkey, and for me discovering this comic was a very important thing. The most important things in my life were the discovery of Rank Xerox, Jimmy Hendrix and Otis Redding.

What music did you grow up with? Prince, James Brown. Prince is my favourite. I love Prince.

What is your earliest memory of music substancially influencing your life? Otis Redding. Yes, definitely. Otis Redding. ?