S/GG: Philippe, nearly 20 years of DIE FORM. Have you reached your aims?
PHILIPPE: The important thing for me, after these many years of work, is to go always further in the reflection and exploration of human mechanisms, beyond appearances. I try to find constantly new evolutions as worked as possible, out of movements and fashions. Every day we are learning new things and unceasingly we have to question ourselves, about the creation itself as well as the technique. DIE FORM being directly a part of our life, creations are evolving and I hope I will never reach a final end!

S/GG: Can you explain the title of your new CD DUALITY?

PHILIPPE: We could say that it is a lyrical drama with particular beauty, presenting the oppositions as being complementary and not antagonistic. The shadow exists only because of the light exists and vice versa. It is about memory, time going by, evanescent beauty that we want to imprison to not lose it, the trap of appearances, and also love and death... Though eroticism is always omnipresent, we wished to keep us away from the "fetish-S/M" image, too reducing and limited.

This project is a new approach, more ended, we hope, to the questions which motivate us because the forms of this search are infinite.

More and more I feel a transition between two worlds: the human's one where he has an harmonious place in the nature, and the inhuman's world destroying all for the profit and immediacy. The values of beauty and emotion are going out.

S/GG: It is a long time since your last CD comes out. What's happened in this 2 years?

PHILIPPE: We have worked during about two years on this project, on the musical, textual, and photographic writing. The tracks being recorded, we have decided to add real violins arrangements, and to work again completely on the mix... So the step was long and difficult! In the meantime, we have finished to present our show with Pascale (our buto dancer) on L'AME ELECTRIQUE.

S/GG: Can you explain me what Buto dance is?

PHILIPPE: At the time of my travel to Japan few years ago, I have seen a buto show and I was completely fascinated by this form of expression.

Originally the "dance of darkness", very provocative, was in reaction against "traditional arts" and was linked to the Hiroshima massacre: then it has evolved in different ways from the extreme performance to ultra esthetic dance shows. Luckily we have found a dancer, Pascale Clertant, practicing this technique and who joined us for the L'AME ELECTRIQUE shows.

S/GG: I heard you work on a new performance. Can you tell me something about that?

PHILIPPE: For the next shows we will work with a new Eurasian dancer, Nathalie Kato, on performances more choreographic, tinted by eroticism, sometimes dramatic... Franck Dematteis, the violinist, may join us, I hope, and the video films will be renewed as much as possible. The netting grid will be suppressed in order to abolish this symbolic barrier between the audience and us. This new phase will be an opening phase and not a closing and aggressive phase.

S/GG: Is DUALITY a part of the TRILOGY OF PASSIONS or a part of a new project?

PHILIPPE: No, DUALITY is not the last part of THE TRILOGY OF PASSIONS, the last volet will be my ultimate project...

I don't like so much things which finish or die; I prefer those which evolve unceasingly towards a kind of search for the absolute, and DUALITY take part in this search.

S/GG: When you compose your music, which things are influencing you?

PHILIPPE: The starting point is always emotional; I often compose the music in an intuitive and spontaneous way, then I search some links between the tracks in order to conceive a more global project. After that, texts, and images which are essential complements, are coming.

I may be influenced by outside phenomenon, but I always try to preserve the DIE FORM'S identity.

S/GG: Is Eliane an important influence for you and in which way?

PHILIPPE: Eliane is a preponderant element in the music of DIE FORM, because her voice is the carnal and living tie between the public and us.

Moreover she sings on stage and I compose according to her voice. We constantly work together, that necessary creates an emulation... She is also my privileged model for photographs and films because I know her well and I don't like to disperse.

S/GG: DIE FORM are changing from S/M-Fetish performance band to an Erotik-Art project. Is this right?

PHILIPPE: Basically DIE FORM has never been a "S/M-fetish" project! We have used these elements among others in our work, but always with a priority for the experimental creation and a certain esthetic.

Our collaboration with Pascale C. was very interesting and came at a moment when we wanted to move off from this too caricatured image of a sex/SM band. Though our process stays absolutely without compromise, it is essential to precise more clearly our evolution...

The public, surprised at the beginning, has been able to discern the spirit of this process and to follow us in this evolution; that proves their open-mindedness. It is important for me to discover unceasingly new things, and not to copy my past or the others past. All creation must be irrepressible and essential.

S/GG: I think you like Japan. On the CD there are two songs with Japanese lyrics, with the voice of Mutsumi Oku. What is the fascination of this language and who is Mutsumi Oku?

PHILIPPE: Mutsumi Oku's voices are on THE MISSING BEAUTY and on TRANSVISIONS: she sings in Japanese but I have intentionally extracted these voices from their initial context for putting them in these new compositions. They bring a different "colour" and a particular poetry. Words are existing but are becoming abstract, like the new instruments of the expression of the soul.

Mutsumi Oku has taken part with Akifumi Nakajima in our side-project UKIYO. She works with her husband Nobuo Kanetani in Kyoto on the personal expression of miming and derision.

S/GG: On DUALITY there is a German song "Der Tod und das Madchen". Why have you chosen this song?

PHILIPPE: I chose this Schubert's "Lied" because I heard Eliane singing it as an exercise. It is more a study than a classical execution...

Its title and its symbolic beauty drew me, and the contrast with the album seems to me rather surprising. As I am autodidactic and non-musician, I see a certain form of irony!

S/GG: Can you give me a view of the future of DIE FORM?

PHILIPPE: As I said above, DIE FORM is directly linked to our life so exposed to multiple evolutions and mutations! The forms of the search are infinite and the constructions limitless...

At a less spiritual level, after the release of the CD in a standard version and in limited box edition, we are preparing singles, a long video of films and live images; posters, t-shirts... Probably new collaborations for some side-projects and I hope a new book.

S/GG: Are there any things which you want to say to the fans of DIE FORM?

PHILIPPE: Ad Infinitum, thanks and yours.