Franck Roger has been a great ambassador for the true meaning of French house music, from his own productions that stretch back more than ten years, through to his record label Real Tone. Having started out producing direct, peak-time vocal cuts, Franck’s dedication to his art has seen his music evolve across an ever-widening panorama of moods and feelings, sound sources and production methods.

It would be a very dedicated fan that could chart every release of Franck’s and how he has travelled along his own production arc, but our 64th release finds him on exemplary form, combining immediate club dynamics with rich, accomplished textures. The beats take centre stage to command you into movement, but really act as a distraction for the strange tones and dubby FX to take control of your head.

Franck’s innate understanding of what dance music should mean comes from the era of the Paradise Garage, where the impulse to get your freak on was as much a psychedelic feeling as a euphoric one. Here he has given us both kinds of emotion in three instantaneous remedies for dancefloor indifference.

In the beginning was… the Beat.

Was little Franck Roger hit by a disco ball when his parents weren’t watching? No one knows, but there were definitely a lot of signs in his early years that indicated future life developments. As a kid, Franck remembers playing around with his audiotape recorder, editing radio hosts voices out and making sure the beat matched when taping the next song…  A D.Y.I. introduction to DJing that soon translated into a mission. It was already about natural instinct: a need for beats, loops and some sounds interfering.  The starting point of house music in the first place. “I don’t think I was made to do anything else but making music.” From hypnotic, stripped-down and minimal productions – the ubiquitous “M word”, to steamier, deeper or more sophisticated moods, Franck Roger has managed, in less than ten years, to create a distinctive musical signature that earned him ongoing praises and respect from the likes of Kerri Chandler, Laurent Garnier, Louie Vega, Osunlade and more… Although he may have earned early attention for his classic vocal productions  (No More Believe, If I), his work soon gave way to a multicolor sound that now finds home in venues from Berlin afterhours club Panorama Bar to Parisian cosy and intimate Djoon Club.

Looking for the perfect beat.

In the last few years Franck developed and redefined his musical landscape, through travelling, experimenting and more importantly beat making. It comes as no surprise that today, party promoters from Japan to South Africa (where House music reigns supreme) invite him regularly. With a studio as his best friend, Franck Roger fears nothing: “Most of the time I use my studio as a sanctuary, a shelter from city mayhem or life complications… I search for a beat and build the tracks from here”. This is what you would call the Beat approach to production. “You never know where it’s going to take you”, he warns. “Sometimes it doesn’t go far at all, simply because it just doesn’t have to.”  Luckily for us, this ability to create severe club bangers comes with an insatiable need to rock the crowd.

Making you sweat in the club, and getting a kick out of it.

Music and dancing have always been inseparable for Franck Roger, like that night he first entered a club in the mid 90’s: “I started going out in the mid-90 when I wasn’t even legal – I was one of those club kids. That’s when it all became clear to me what I was gonna do with my life”, he recalls. At the time, the loudest place to hear House music was the legendary Rex Club in Paris. Folks such as DJ Deep and Laurent Garnier would play there all the time. Fast forward to 2008: the Rex Club is now home to Franck’s successful Real Tone Records party “The 5 Beats” showing club kids du jour how it should be done, alongside prestigious guest dj’s he can also call friends.

As Franck Roger plays more and more club gigs throughout the world, sharing his love for music, the more firm his position remains in the great legacy of DJ’s that matter.

On Sunday, February 5 from 1-6 p.m., Pitchfork will present “From Scratch”, an event with electronic music producer Nicolas Jaar at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York. The event will be presented in collaboration with MoMA PS1 and Clown & Sunset Aesthetics, Jarr’s newly formed interdisciplinary culture house with film producer Noah Kraft. Clown & Sunset Aesthetics is the parent company of Jaar’s record label Clown & Sunset.

“From Scratch” will premiere a new five-hour, multidisciplinary performance from Jaar, with musical collaborators Will Epstein, Dave Harrington (Jaar’s partner in Darkside), and Sasha Spie

lberg. It will include a movement piece by Lizzie Feidelson, and sound-derived video art from CSA’s filmmaker-in-residence, Ryan Staake of Pomp & Clout.

The event is free with admission to MoMA PS1.

Seuil stands proud as one of her most cherished creations; a man ever evolving as an artist from the structure and function of minimalist dancefloor music through to the esoteric expression and ambience of jazz, channelling that same swinging spirit that has characterised much of the work on Circus Company.

The release of his ‘Chamaeleonidae’ album proved to the world that there was a strange musical spirit in Seuil that manifested itself in live drums and languid keys; character traits you could associate with his fellow Parisians dOP. The collaborations between them have been many in recent years, and once again they come together to both complement and test each other’s styles in a surprising vision of what pop music could sound like if crafted with soul and imagination.

The beats stay tight and steady throughout the three tracks that make up ‘Fluctuat Nec Mergitur’, driving a foggy brew of strings, synths and drones into a commanding groove. Meanwhile the composition gently rises and falls on waves of melody, as particular harmonies swell in to carry you away to a very blue kind of euphoria. Such drama and passion captures the essence of both Seuil and his beloved city in one heady brew of dancefloor excellence.