Interview with Dimitri Pachkov

How did you get involved with the project originally?

I’m just a friend of Alexandre Leboucher. A few years ago, we were neighbours too. I knew that he was developing a video game project called 1112. For my part, I’ve made music on machines and computers for years. Just little loops; I never got to finish songs. One day, I took my laptop and played him some loops. He said to me “it could be cool if I can use these tracks in the game”… I said “no problem”. It was an opportunity for me to use my abandoned projects (even if they were very simple loops at the beginning). I finally had a goal: I had to finish something for someone.

Who was the Julia featured on “Falling”, and is she still doing vocals?

Julia was just a friend. She sings only for fun. I had this old voice track on my laptop (at the beginning, we tried to make a trip-hop track with “Falling”… like Portishead). But then Alexandre Leboucher needed an opening for the trailer of the first episode. I took the track and made a new song by adding orchestral samples. In the end, it works very well!

Could we have the lyrics for “Falling”, “Feldweg” and “Song For Her”?

I have to ask Julia for the lyrics of “Falling”. But to be honest, the lyrics are not very structured. I hope she has kept them somewhere. For “Feldweg” and “Song For Her” you can ask Ida Landsberg?

Your role was reduced to a single featured vocal song in the third episode. Was that your choice?

For the third episode, I think Alexandre Leboucher maybe wanted a new identity for the game. For my part, that period was very hard for me. I abandoned music for a few years. Big personal health problems.

Even though Episode 04 was in its early stages, were you contacted to be part of it?

No.

Where did the idea for the glitchy style of the vocal tracks come from?

For me, electronica and trip-hop were the styles I always dreamed of doing. You can listen to these artists (the biggest influences for me): Lali Puna / The Notwist / Portishead / Schneider TM. The composition with Ida Landsberg was influenced by Lali Puna.

How did you originally get into music composition?

Since 1992, with a music tracker on the Amiga 500 (FastTracker 2). It was a revelation and a revolution for me.

Do you still have the masters of the tracks you composed?

To be honest, I’m still very surprised by your interest in 1112’s music. For me it was more for fun than a serious project. I didn’t expect 1112 to be a success. I only kept the masters of “Feldweg” and “Song For Her”, because they were a collaboration with another artist (Ida Landsberg) and I had to be more serious and respect that. For the other tracks, I don’t even know if I kept the masters. I should search my old hard drives…

What was the biggest challenge working on the games?

The only challenge for me was working with another artist (Ida Landsberg, for the second episode), because it became more serious. I had to be more professional. For my part, I’m a lazy boy. I hate working, so producing “Song For Her” and “Feldweg” was difficult for me to manage (quality, remixing, mastering, publishing on iTunes and Spotify, getting Ida Landsberg’s feedback). But in the end, I’m very proud of the results.

Did any of the tracks have official titles? The instrumental tracks had placeholder names like “theme1”.

As I said, I made the Episode 01 tracks very fast. I remember sometimes working directly at Alexandre Leboucher’s house, next to him. For each track, I took one of my old loops or ideas (I work with Ableton Live) and made songs very fast to be efficient. So I didn’t even have time to think of names… seriously, I didn’t expect the game to be a success.

What does the future hold for Dimitri Pachkov?

I have no plan for the future. I continue to make loops. It’s still difficult for me to finish a track. Maybe one day a studio will contact me to make music for a film or a video game. But I’m old, and video game production has become a big business. There are a lot of young artists like Danger or C418, more talented than me!