Arranger, composer, and producer, Alexis Delong never decided to make music his career. As a teenager, he listened to tons of records, learned guitar and bass to play along with Velvet Underground or Jamiroquai, and discovered IDM, electronic music, and contemporary jazz at home thanks to a highly discerning stepfather. The first time he heard Aphex Twin opened up a world far broader than radio.
Everything changed by chance: in high school, a friend was looking for a bass player, and he said yes one Saturday. In Nantes, one band followed another until Inuit, a six-piece that taught him arranging, the industry, and the art of standing up for an idea as a group. It was through that project that he met Benjamin Lebeau, who produced the band's album and gave him his start. Since then, he has focused mainly on production. In fall 2020, a session at Pierre's, from Inuit, introduced him to Zaho de Sagazan: together, they shaped La Symphonie des éclairs, whose final piano part is a guide take captured with two iPhones placed on either side of the instrument.
In this episode of Tales, he looks back on a Shaggy song that moved him despite himself, the producer's role as a conduit for ideas, the constraint that guides each of his sonic palettes, his taste for the invisible work of the studio, and the ambient record he made alone in Antwerp with a modular system and a tape recorder, without a computer.
Alexis Delong - Arranger, composer, and producer
The Tales interview
What are your earliest memories of music?
They're pretty basic, I think. Music in the car, my parents' music. But there is one very specific memory, from the late '90s, early 2000s: It Wasn’t Me by Shaggy. My mother listened to it all the time. The song moved me enormously, but at the same time it made me uncomfortable. I thought it was kind of lame to be moved by music. In my head, I was thinking: “Why does this track make me feel that way?”
Did music have an important place in your family environment?
Yes, definitely. My stepfather at the time was very knowledgeable, especially about electronic music, IDM, and contemporary jazz. He introduced me to so many things that blew my mind. And the first time I listened to Aphex Twin, I thought: “Actually, you can go much further than what they play on the radio.” I was very lucky; there was so much high-quality music at home.
If you had to break down your musical journey into major stages?
First, listening to a huge amount of music between the ages of 12-13 and 16-17. At the same time, learning guitar and bass, just for fun, to play along with what I liked. Velvet, Jamiroquai, funk or rock stuff.
Then, meeting the people I started making music with more seriously in Nantes. First Ecleptique, then Inuit. That's when we started telling ourselves it could become something else. When Inuit took off, it opened up a new stage. Then, through that project, I met Benjamin Lebeau, who produced our album and got me started in production. And since then, that's essentially what I've done.
Was there a moment when you told yourself, “music is going to take a central place in my life”?
No, actually. Before music, I had lots of passions. Photography, computers, soccer... Every time, I told myself it would last a few years. When I started taking music seriously, I thought the same thing: “It'll pass.” After five years, I realized it wasn't passing. But I never told myself it was a calling or a revelation. Just: I like doing this. For now, it's lasting.
Was there a defining encounter?
Yes, absolutely. It's a pure butterfly effect. I was in my junior or senior year of high school. A friend, Aldwin, was looking for a bass player to start a band. I said: “I've got a bass, let's do it.” It was a Saturday, just to give it a try.
I could have said no, couldn't have been bothered. If things had happened differently, I'd probably be doing something else today. Music was never a conscious plan; it's a series of coincidences.
What does Inuit represent in your journey?
It's much more than a school. It's the first real part of what you could call a “career.” It's incredibly foundational. Inuit was also a very powerful human adventure. We learned how the music world and the industry work, but also how to compose as six people, how to make clear arrangements, how to defend an idea without overpowering everyone else's.
It was a technical and artistic school, but also a psychological and social one. And beyond the project, these are people I'm very close to, who I still collaborate with whenever possible.
How did you meet Zaho de Sagazan?
Quite simply. Pierre and Simon from Inuit were working on a project where Zaho was the keyboardist and backing vocalist. Pierre told me about her songs and said they were really good.
We did a session in fall 2020, just after Covid. We met at Pierre's place, she played us her tracks, and we just started making music right away. It was fluid, natural. We weren't thinking something huge was going to happen. It was just cool.
Do you remember creating La Symphonie des éclairs?
Very well. The first time she played it, I wasn't convinced it would be the central track. Zaho, on the other hand, was sure of it. She had that vision.
The track remained fragile for a very long time. The piano you hear on the final track is a guide piano recorded on an iPhone, at a friend's house, because we had neither a microphone nor a piano in the studio that day. We tried to redo it many times, but it never worked. In the end, we kept that take.
Zaho knew this track was the cornerstone of her record. We spent a huge amount of time trying to enhance exactly what she had in mind.
How do you approach a fragile song, a piano-and-vocal track for example?
There are two scenarios. Either we meet in the studio with a demo already in place. In that case, I think it's essential to talk a lot. To understand the intention, the big picture, who the person is, why the song exists.
If you understand the intention, you can justify your creative choices. In the studio, we easily spend 30 to 40 % of the time talking, even right in the middle of the process.
The other scenario is when someone sends me a track and I work alone. Then it's much more instinctive, experimental. I go off in all directions a bit, then try to extract something coherent.
How do you handle the tension between your personal vision and a project's expectations?
I try to anticipate it beforehand. Today, I'm very careful to work with people who know why they're calling on me.
A record isn't “good” in absolute terms. It works when the right people come together at the right time. My role is to put my skills at the service of a project, not to impose a vision.
Do you have an established work process?
Not really, apart from one central principle: constraint.
I always start by creating a sonic palette, a set of instruments. Once that's defined, I don't allow myself to go beyond it. That lets me be very free elsewhere: in the arrangements, harmonies, and melodies.
I work 100 % through constraints. Few instruments, but explored in depth.
Where does that approach come from?
From '90s IDM. Extremely free projects, but made with very few tools. That idea of a sonic signature really resonates with me.
And I like the physical relationship with instruments. Finding unlikely objects, tinkering, making sounds on the fly, loops... in my view, making music should remain playful above all.
Studio or live, if you had to choose?
The studio, without hesitation. I really prefer creating to performing. Live is the culmination, the projection outward. The studio, on the other hand, is an enclosed place, almost outside the world, where everything can still exist without having to be shown.
I like the long, invisible work, spending time on something no one has heard yet. There's something very precious about those moments. The music is of no use; it doesn't do anything for anyone yet. It has no effect, no function, no immediate feedback. And yet, it may already contain something powerful, something that could one day exist somewhere else.
That ambivalence fascinates me. Walking out of a session sometimes thinking that what we've done is useless, almost absurd, and other times having the intuition that there's something important there, even if no one knows it yet. That secret, the time it exists before being exposed, is exactly what makes me love the studio.
Do you feel the musical landscape has changed profoundly since Inuit?
Enormously, especially economically. In our day, there were lots of support programs. Today, it would be much more complicated to start a six-piece band. Live has become an end in itself, more than a training tool. Many projects develop online first, without any real stage experience. That's a shame, because live performance is the most formative place there is.
We're part of one of the last generations to have started out playing in bars and small music venues. That model is disappearing.
If you could produce an album for any artist?
FKA twigs, with Dean Blunt and Oneohtrix Point Never. Because it’s more fun when there are several of us.
And a deceased artist?
John Cage. I would have loved to collaborate with him.
A personal project, under your own name?
I’m always working on them. I record a lot, I explore. Recently, I went to Antwerp alone with a modular system and a tape recorder, without a computer. I recorded an ambient album on cassette.
What’s it for? For now, not much. But it exists. And that’s already a lot!
