Hi Raphael, please introduce yourself for our readers. Give us some infos about yourself and your work.
My name is Raphael Gesqua, and I'm a 20 years old music (?!?) maker, in the french section of my (favourite) group, I mean Silents of course...


You are a member of the famous Silents. Please give us more infos about your group, the organisation and infos about former groups you were a member of.
Well, it's more than a year now, since I joined Silents, together with Ronan, Rookie, Walt, Performer, Motif, NHP, BKH. After many ups'n'downs, and a little trip to2Anarchy, I'm finally still in Silents, and I don't want to change!!! Currently, I'm the official organizer in France (and Daryl isnt't!!!). So, it's up to me to decide who joins us and who is kicked out in France. Then, I just have to inform Animal (the real leader) of any change... I think it must be the same in any group!!! Before? Hmmm, I was in a dirty group called Delight... But I don't want to talk about that...

You are the man behind the music for ICE and Virtual World. Please tell us a bit more about that.
Well, first, you have to know that 'ICE' wasn't a Silents production at the beginning: it was nearly finished when we sent some previews to Animal. Then, he told us to join, and that made us encouraged, and... You know what followed! As for Virtual Worlds, I just made the music and gave it to Thomas Landspurg by intermediate of Performer, who was (and still is) a friend of Thomas.

Do you create all samples for your tunes by yourself? Is it important for a good tune to use hq samples?
All my samples come from many, various sources like CDs, Synthes, etc... I don't like ripping samples, coz I try to be original on each composition But anyway, I'm not a perfectionist : I often desert sound qualities for the melody, that is the more important part of a music, from my point of view. Indeed, I think that a tune with a nice melody and bad samples is far better than one with great samples, but with nothing else...


What do you think about parties? Did you ever take part in a music compo? If so, did you win any prizes?
I like parties! When there are some interesting people to meet, and nice competitions, above all. I took part in two music compos, in France, and I won the first prize, both time...It was on 1991, for both of them...


Do you think compos are fair, or do you think that famous musican are more prefered?
Well, of course, on each compo, famous musicians have got more chances to win than others. So, I think that all party organizers should do like the ones in the compo where I won the 1st prize: not to give the name/pseudo of the musician behind each music played! So, nobody can contest the results!!! Don't you think so?


What does your Amiga-configuration look like?
Oh, it's very simple: an Amiga 500 with 1 MB of ram, an audio-digitizer, and that's all. I haven't got any synth or anything like that for the moment. (I take my samples on those of my friends!!!)

Do you have also contact to other musican in the scene? How is your relationship to them?
Yes. I have contacts with these people: Delorean/Complex, Tip and Mantronix/Pha, Mel'o'Dee/Shining, Moby/Dreamdealers, Tom Poison/ Frantic, Groo/Black Robes... We usually swap modules, samples, prods and letters, like everybody!

Do you have a girlfriend? If so, how do you manage your scene live and your real live?
Yes, I have. Her name is Florence, and she is an excellent piano player. She also looks pretty nice! Anyway, scene live is not as important as real live: it's just for fun...


Tell us your favourite...
Graphican: Cougar/Sanity
Musican: Uncle Tom/Scoopex
Coder: Azatoth/Phenomena
Group: Pure Metal Coders
Diskmag: RAW/PMC
Tool: Protracker
Party: I haven't gone enough to judge.

From where do you take the inspirations for your tunes?
I listen to lots of Movie soundtracks from well known artists like Vangelis, John Williams, John Barry, James Horner and Jerry Goldsmith...


Are you working for a new music disk? If so, can you give us some more infos about it?
Yes, but I just can tell you the name: "Tuneful Blows"!

What do you think about the demo scene today?
It's okay.


Please list things you like.
Parties, contacts, compos, meetings, conferences.

Please list things you dislike.
Jealous peolple (Hi Cougar/DRD!) (Not Cougar/Sanity!), coders who don't care about musicians (Hello, dear Ronan!).


Now you`ve some free bytes for messages or whatever you want to say.
Just a message to Walt/Melon Dezign: "Tel est pris qui croyait prendre, mais tant va la cruche a l'eau que... Pfff... Qu'elle se mouille." To Reflex/Rebels: Good synthetic tunes, guy! Moby/Dreamdealers: Ou tai pace, fred? Delorean/Complex: Hi, Sakari... I'll write back to you very soon. Tip/Mantronix: Hi, Siamese Twins! What about Crystal Symphonies III? Groo/Black Robes: Hi, man, thanx 4 the nice tunes you sent... I'll write you soon...


Thank you for the interview, Raphael. Nice to met you in Paris.
Come back when you want, man!