Fused: two men, a woman and a radio guitar

Fuse Factory is an electro-pop act with an international flavour based in Lausanne Fuse Factory

Near Lausanne, a three-person act called Fuse Factory has built a nonconformist sonic, visual and technological experience – and their own instruments too.

swissinfo went to meet the group hiding out in an 18th century château surrounded by rolling fields and vineyards, set against the backdrop of the Alps and Lake Geneva.

It all looks fairly peaceful, but beyond two sets of centuries-old wooden doors and down the steps in a cavernous basement Fuse Factory is at work. The ground throbs with deep electronic pulses; it could be a torture chamber without the iron maiden.

Between a maze of heavy cables, camcorders, microphones, video screens and mixing boards, Fuse Factory is rehearsing: a svelte Frenchwoman and a bald goateed American accompanied by somebody playing a 1990s ghetto blaster with a guitar neck attached to it.

It’s certainly catchy but it isn’t ordinary. Nor is it supposed to be.

“I think our music is deep,” says Sam, the band’s willowy vocalist, a classically trained musician and French national. She sports a trendy haircut that few could get away with. “It’s powerful and it’s emotional. It’s sensitive and a bit crazy. Original and different.” She runs out of adjectives.

Reviewer David Lalande of the Swiss television show Dolce Vita has called the music “a perfect balance between sound, image and a beautiful feminine voice…”

The electro-pop outfit in June released their third record – a concept album they called Soul Food. Fuse Factory’s video artist, Spir, describes a symbiotic relationship between the group’s three members and their media.

“We come up with an idea of what we want to communicate – or feelings – and then I go away and I try to find some visuals or colours or sounds for videos that reflect that,” he told swissinfo.

“Mio [the band’s third member] does the same with his rhythms and his music, and Sam the same with the words. Then we come together, mix it up and refine it.”

Technology

The man often finds himself ensconced behind several mixing instruments and small video screens. A California native who studied fine arts at university, he spent two years travelling South America as a motorcycle missionary and during the day, directs the operations of a non-governmental organisation.

He’s also married to Sam and they have two children.

The third piece of the avant-garde ensemble is a sound designer – or “sound pilot” – called Mio Star. Swiss residents would recognise that he has named himself after the discount home appliances brand at Migros, one of the country’s leading supermarket chains.

He jokes that he likes cheap things, but seems more seriously intent on fashioning new musical instruments he dreams up.

Originally a jazz percussionist, he has for the past several months appeared on stage with what he calls his radio guitar, a sort of chimera instrument that allows him to control a library of electronic sounds stored in his laptop.

“I was kind of in another dimension when I had that idea,” he said. “All of a sudden it just clicked. I was bored of just tweaking knobs and hitting keys and I wanted some sort of new instrument that allowed me to be more rock-and-rollish, more into it and more physically involved.”

Previously he had spent much of his time on stage hunched over a small keyboard and a mixing board. Before each show, he would pre-load electronic sounds into his laptop that would be looped and adjusted as the performance went along.

Reciprocal

The radio guitar uses a technology known as Midi – musical instrument digital interface. Sensors he has built into the knobs of the radio and onto the guitar neck beam his movements into electronic signals that feed into his computer software.

“It’s a back-and-forth process. I try to surrender the machines and at the same time suggest paths to follow. Because they allow you to do things you never thought about before,” he said. “It’s kind of a question and answer process with the technology.”

Questioning and reflection are central tenets of Soul Food. The album’s lyrics explore the themes of introspection, sacrifice and spirituality.

“It’s our lives,” says Mio. “It’s like the mirror of our lives, we express through our music, and our pictures and our lyrics is the reflection of what we live, what we experience as individuals and as a band.

“We want people to find their own quest for truth,” Spir stresses. He believes the group’s multimedia experience can be both deeply moving or just entertaining. He’s fine with either.

Fuse Factory plays many of its shows in French-speaking Switzerland but is enthusiastic about venturing abroad. They have traveled to Britain, France and the United States. Inquire about their ambitions and Spir jokes about world domination. “We want to travel to Japan to play that’s realistic,” says a more modest Mio.

Accessible

He believes the group has with its third album created a more accessible sound than in previous efforts. “Abstract music tends to be intellectual… serious,” says Mio, adding that even his young son at times gets caught up in the atmosphere.

A year ago, the group would have classified their sound as “trip-hop” – an all-encompassing term used to describe anything generally unclassifiable. Trying to make sense of electronic music and its byzantine classification of genres and sub-genres can become a consuming process.

“Pop was not an easy solution,” explains Sam. “It was part of our personal journeys to be more accessible. You can be on stage and in your own little world and you never touch the audiences.”

Spir’s videos still furiously move in perfect time with Mio’s rhythms and Sam’s effects-laden vocals; and in clubs and music festivals – Fuse Factory played the Cully Jazz Festival in the spring – audiences too find themselves in motion.

“We like pop music,” said Mio. “Pop to me means universal.”

As to creating a semblance of a legacy, Spir feigns gravitas. “The radio guitar will last a decade.”

swissinfo, Justin Häne in Lausanne

Fuse Factory

Sam (France)
Singer and writer/composer
Classical training in violin
Sang in various rock bands in earlier days

Spir (Los Angeles)
Trained in fine arts
Creates live video installations
Director of a non-governmental organisation

Mio (Switzerland)
Jazz funk drummer
Has released two “ambient” albums
Married to Elle with one son

Influences
Björk, Herbie Hancock, Andy Warhol, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Paul Cézanne, Biz Markie, Fiona Apple, Lausanne

Midi

Midi is an industry-standard protocol that allows electronic instruments to communicate with each other.

It is used in the music production process but does not actually transmit an audio signal.

It tells instruments to perform certain functions, controlling pitch intensity and other characteristics that can include vibrato, panning and tempo.

It was widely adopted soon after its introduction in 1983.

The radio guitar in principle works like any other Midi instrument. Its sensors – built into the knobs on the radio and on the guitar neck – pick up movements translate them into a digital signal.

The same technology can be used to control video effects, theatre lighting and special effects.