INTERVIEW : DANAKIL
Interview & pictures : Franck Blanquin
on Friday, March 11th 2011 - 37 566 views
After about ten years of existence, Danakil has established itself at the forefront of the French scene. Recorded between Jamaica, France and Mali, their new album, "Echos du Temps", is rich in varied collaborations and has superb production. Without doubt the band's most accomplished album. We meet Mathieu (saxophone) and Balik (vocals).
Reggaefrance / The album was recorded between Paris, Bamako and Kingston. Why those choices? How did they influence the album?
Danakil / Balik: At first, we wanted to change the way we work, compared with our other albums, recorded at home. Reggae having been our passion for nearly 15 years, the choice of Kingston was clear and obvious. There was the whole mythical side of the places where we recorded. All those studio names we used to read on the sleeves of the albums we listened to.
Mathieu: Africa also proved to be an obvious choice, we had several countries in mind, such as Togo, but there was a lack of infrastructure for recording. Côte d'Ivoire too, but the grim news situation didn't allow us to go there. So we opted for Mali.
Balik: I had done a recce there a year earlier, and I had met Manjul. When I got back to Paris, I told the band: "I've found it".
Mathieu: In the end, we wanted this album to have a particular colour, both in terms of the instruments used and the collaborations.
In Kingston, after your booking at Buju Banton's studio was cancelled, you ended up in most of the island's legendary studios (Tuff Gong, Harry J…)
Mathieu: It was a blessing in disguise, we had to reorganise, work at night. We had to find our rhythm. But we had more time, because they're less strict about hours at night… The fact that these sessions were at night adds to their magic.
Balik: Out there, not a day went by without us bumping into a legendary musician, Kiddus I, Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace… Part of the Music Action team, our booking agency, joined us in Jamaica, and let us benefit from their connections. So we were able to have Sticky Thompson and U-Roy on the album.
In Mali you worked with Manjul. What did he bring to the making of the album?
Balik: He did an enormous amount of work on the horn arrangements and the backing vocals. As soon as we played him a track, he would suggest different harmonies for the voices... He's very prolific and has a great sense of orchestration for putting an album together. And he's also a very good musician.
Mathieu: He also helped us with the arrangement of traditional African instruments. Thanks to Manjul, we were also able to play two concerts in Bamako. It's thanks to him that we met Natty Jean (who now accompanies them on tour, editor's note) and DJ Lion.
 On s’est construit petit à petit,
c’est avant tout une histoire d’amitié... 
It feels like this is Danakil's most accomplished album…
Mathieu: For us it's obvious that we've never gone so far in recording an album, we've never had so much time, or so many resources… Before recording we clearly had our various wishes in mind for this album, it was long in the making. We were also very lucky because everything went to plan each time, at the right moment, with the right encounters. Also, Balik's way of writing has evolved a great deal, the lyrics have a more poetic turn, which was less present on our previous albums.
Héritier du sort denounces the failings of our society. Your view of the world seems dark…
Balik: For me what brings hope in this song is the instrumental that counterbalances the lyrics. I started from the phrase "As far as the eye can see" which I find interesting, and the rest came quite naturally, taking stock of the world today, it's a bit of a state of mind. I question myself, placing myself at the centre of these questions, to find out whether I too bear my share of responsibility.
Mathieu: It's a special song for us because we had trouble fitting the music to Balik's lyrics. Originally, he had written the lyrics over a Mobb Deep hip hop beat. Several times we nearly gave up.
On the track Regards croisés, a duet with Natty Jean, Balik's flow is closer to rap.
Balik: It's true that for this track we strayed somewhat from the usual paths reggae takes. A few people told us they were moved by the lyrics but that the arrangement didn't suit them. But we know it's a track that will work well live.
Mathieu: We didn't cheat by making a hip hop track because it's part of our influences, and it was something Balik had wanted for a long time.
What made you cover this standard of French chanson (Non je ne regrette rien) and collaborate with U-Roy?
Balik: We covered it for the first time at our concert at the Olympia, and it worked very well live.
Mathieu: From the start, when we decided to cover this track, we knew we wanted U-Roy's contribution, the blend of singing and toasting. We wanted to build this bridge between our 2 musical cultures.
How did the collaboration with the McAnuff family go?
Balik: We had crossed paths many times on tour. We had done a track live with Matthew at Reggae Sun Ska and we had planned to put it on the new album. Once in Jamaica, we suggested recording a track together, written specially for the occasion, which had never been done. The session took place at Harry J Studio, a quite extraordinary moment where we ran into Pablo Moses, who walked into the studio in the middle of the recording, and Sly Dunbar, who dropped by to pick up a tom drum…. It was the encyclopaedia of reggae right before our eyes.
What conclusions do you draw from the decade since the band's beginnings?
Balik: We believe that good things come to those who wait, it took us a lot of patience to reach the status of intermittent (French entertainment worker status, editor's note). Every stage of our career was interesting to live through, from our first tours when we slept on the beach, right up to our Olympia. We could have stopped the adventure dozens of times. We built ourselves up little by little, above all it's a story of friendship between friends who have known each other since school.
In 2011, how do you manage to make a living from a reggae band?
Mathieu: It's our concerts that keep us going, record sales just serve to reinvest in the next album. We also try to offer other alternatives such as giving the album away with a concert ticket. We want to show people that the CD is still around, and after all the work done in the studio, we want the public to listen to the album in good conditions, rather than a downloaded version with cut-price sound quality.
Balik: In these times of crisis, with the price of a concert ticket and an album, the public struggles to afford both. Besides, it will get the album circulating among a wider audience.
On our forum, one topic provoked a lot of reaction, a piece written by a Mondomix blogger, "Danakil, reggae for the misunderstanding".
Mathieu: Yes, we saw that article, these are criticisms we often come across on various forums. But we find it a sterile line of argument because there's no substance. For example, it has remarks about Balik's locks but rarely anything interesting… Often people stop at the "French reggae" label, whereas you should just take it as music. We don't have to fit into set codes.
Are there any producers or musicians you would like to work with?
Balik: I'd like to do a track with Tairo, I've never met him but I really appreciate what he does. We have an idea for a track with Alpha Blondy, whom we've often run into on the road but we weren't able to make it happen for this album. We'd like to do a track with Akhenaton…
You have two tracks coming out on Soul Vybz, recorded with Sly & Robbie. Can you tell us more?
Balik: They're different versions of two tracks on the album, L'avenir and Timeline. The original version of these tracks is the Soul Vybz one. When we recorded with the band, I didn't play them the tracks recorded with Sly & Robbie so that they would give the track a different instrumental. So the results are totally different.
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