Monsieur Verdeaux

Let virtue and goodness be perfected in every way

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Monsieur Verdoux

Monsieur Verdeaux

Monsieur Verdoux

Monsieur Verdeaux

We all love prog, yeah, progressive rock music. That one that punk once wanted to destroy. Forget for a while all the excess, the pomp and circumstance, those marvelous sleeve designs. That’s long gone or maybe not. You know the masterpieces albums of the genre. Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon. Yes’s Close To The Edge. King Crimson’s In The Court of The Crimson King. Jethro Tull’s Aqualung. Mahavishnu’s Apocalypse, the whole array of bands and solo artists who put music on records like made for the mind and soul, instead of just for the body, if you know what I mean.

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of The Moon (1973)

King Crimson - In The Court of The Crimson King (1969)

Yes - Close To The Edge (1972)

Jethro Tull - Aqualung (1971)

Some said that the so-called French prog was a bit diverse of the similar found in other countries, notably England, the great Mecca of the progressive rock sound. When prog went global, France had its share. For the connoisseur, there’s more than French Revolution, cheese, landscape and nouvelle-vague.

Artists like Ange, Ame Son, Magma, Jean-Michel Jarre, Zao, Harmonium, Shylock, Didier Malherbe, Gong (yes, they are Franco-British), Cyrille Verdeaux’s Clearlight, Lard Free, Nemo and others are at the same level as their well-known colleagues in England, Germany, Italy and the USA.

Paris, 1968: car barricades

According to the common sense, the French prog scene pay tribute to two main cultural aspects that defined the term. Firstly, the boiling political scene and the notion of freedom of the Sixties, with its deep extent into artistic and academic realms. Secondly, because there was one certain Daevid Allen (1938-2015), the Aussie mastermind behind Gong, that crazy psychedelic posse with records about flying teapot, pixies and You.

Bang a Gong: the late Daevid Allen (1938-2015)

The former influence mentioned here had obvious connections with the then divided world of Capitalist and Communist forces. The Sixties was like that, with the right wing and the left wing at the peak of their polarization. Brazil with their ‘oh, no, things went wrong here’ is a great example of that.

Filles puissantes changer le monde

Let’s say that fifty years ago ideology had its appeal on countries’ decisions and on society choices, fueling the definition of world borders and the way things had to be. It was not different with the unsatisfied youth of the Sixties, the post-WWII children, the height of the right-left strife well represented by the Paris student barricades events and the uprising of May 1968.

Allen, an alien, an Aussie man in Paris

As regard to Mr. Daevid Allen, before Gong history he was known in the British rock scene as a co-founder of Soft Machine, one of the greatest prog bands of all time. It has been said that things started to happen in France (the prog sound) when Allen relocated to Paris in the late 1960s, after have been denied to re-enter in England. Allen was indeed an alien, but not in France, where he already had established some previous cultural connections.

Some may not agree that prog rock in France started with Allen’s visa problem. But it is a fact that he helped or at least inspired local artists to go further into sound exploration.

Cyrille Verdeaux on piano at Pathé Studios, Paris

This prologue also helps us to check the background of the interesting story of the before mentioned Cyrille Verdeaux, the guy responsible for the Clearlight project legacy. First and foremost, this man lives in Brasilia for over a decade. He is here because he is a traveler in a broad sense. Although he may not like the term prog and its derivation, it’s a wonder to think that we have a genuine prog star, a master of the prog sound somewhere around in the capital of Brazil.

Cyrille Verdeaux, a prog legend in Brasília

Mike Oldfield with a gong

Born in Paris, 1949, pianist Verdeaux is the only French artist who had ever a deal with Virgin Records, the record label founded in the 1970s by British billionaire, adventurer and entrepreneur Richard Branson. Virgin Records. The same company who brought to life in 1973 the stunning Tubular Bells, composed and almost played alone by prog hero Mike Oldfield. That music started an era, and it was used in a sequence of William Friedkin’s The Exorcist film leading TB to a worldwide acclaim. The rest is history.

Clearlight Symphony (1975)

Virgin Records released Clearlight Symphony, the album that kicked Cyrille Verdeaux’s career in 1975. In the wake of success of Tubular Bells, Verdeaux composed and recorded Clearlight Symphony in London, in the same vein of Oldfield’s best-known work. Two long pieces, a fantastic psychedelic mix of jazz fusion and symphonic rock. Monsieur Verdeaux was not alone on that trip. He had as cohort of co-travelers, among others, French compatriots Christian Boulé (RIP) (guitar) and Didier Malherbe (sax), as well as Gong members, Tim Blake (who co-produced the album) and superb guitar player Steve Hillage.

Cyrille Verdeaux’s history is well documented on the internet. You can track down his discography, activities and viewpoints on countless websites, in French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and so forth, as well as his music.

For full reference, check his CDBABY page.

Cyrille and Fatima Verdeaux with Miloux and Raphael (on the sofa)

What follows is an interview with monsieur Cyrille “Clearlight” Verdeaux made at his home one afternoon in Brasília few weeks ago. The conversation should be mainly on music but went far through vicissitudes, life and death, political and philosophical beliefs, religion, Earth’s environment, how to improve your health, God and sound manipulation.

If you stay here until the end, you probably be eager for Cyrille Verdeaux’s music. That’s the aim of all things here. So make yourself comfortable, have a coffee, a beer, a tea, a joint, a wine, a glass of water, whatever, and spend some time with a man you don’t meet every day. Thanks to him for his patience, elegance and time.

Blog do Hektor – How do you like to hear your name correctly pronounced?

Cyrille Verdeaux – My name is Cyrille “Verdo”. Like Bordeaux, but Verdeaux. My name means in French glass of water.

BH – Is that where the idea of Clearlight comes from?

CV – No, Clearlight comes from the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the one that says that when you die you are on the seventh level. So my first album was based on these seven levels. You go through seven different stages before you reach light, the white tunnel and the angels, all that.

BH – Tibetan mythology?

CV – Yes, Tibetan but Egyptian book of dead also is somehow similar to the Tibetan to with what happens after death. A big mystery. Nobody knows but we have some clues from the near death-experienced people.

BH – Do you believe in life after death?

CV – I do prefer to believe that because otherwise it would be kind of senseless to continue to live on this planet, to suffer and then what? People would kill themselves at the first problem’s appearance, like “I don’t to want live anymore this stupid life” and… bang, they die. But if you believe in a different nature able to transcend matter, the concept of a future life is understandable.

BH – The after death plane. Is that like a religious point of view?

CV – It’s just a small philosophy because I am not on religion. I do not believe in dogmas. I believe everybody has its own eyes, own ears, own brains to understand what is going on in this special planet.

BH – Don’t you have religion, as are you not a Catholic person?

CV – My mother baptized me Catholic when I was three months old. We were all Catholics. But I was three months old, nobody asked me what I was thinking about religions!

BH – You are free now.

CV – When I was 14 years old, I quit Catechism. I was more interested in Buddhism. I studied and practiced the Buddhism, all the things you need to know from Buddha’s wisdom. Then I go to India where I discovered that the teachings of Jesus Christ were better than this Karma load taught by the Hindus! So now, not only Buddha but also Jesus are my teachers and guides. They both agree on most of the important issues, so it is not difficult.

BH – How better you mean.

CV – Compassion. When you see somebody suffer…. In India, they say, “ah, this guy has a bad karma and certainly deserves what happens to him, let him die”. If you are poor in India, they don’t want to know about you….

BH – Don’t they know about compassion?

CV – The Buddhists know better compassion than the Hindus.

BH – Maybe compassion is not an exclusive thing that belongs only to Buddhists and Christians. It is a human thing.

CV – I am telling you that the Indians strongly believe in these dogmas about bad karma. It is as when you suffer that “it is because in the past life you were evil, etc…”

BH – You don’t think like that.

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952)

CV – No, all things considered I prefer to see things as a Christian is supposed to see. However India is a very special country and they have their way of thinking and many great masters such as Yogananda, Krishnamurti, Yogi Bajan, Sri Aurobindo, etc., etc. I don’t know if you have been there.

BH – Not yet.

CV – Well, it is a very challenging culture. You never go back the same after a 6-month’s visit there. They are now over one billion of people. When I was in India they were only seven hundred millions, it was thirty years ago. I think the demographic situation is completely out of control now.

Overpopulation in São Paulo

BH – Here in Brazil we are an overpopulated country as well, although many Brazilians ignore that. That is just one of our many problems.

CV – Overpopulation is one of the biggest problems humanity will soon have to face. You see the pollution; more people will need electricity, cars, jobs, food. The more people you have the more problems with pollution you will face, we are already on the limit, basically.

BH – This is a big problem. But how you’re gonna do that? How you are going to say to people, ‘hey, don’t have children’?

CV – Well the Chinese tried.

BH – Yeah, but see what happened there.

CV – Now they are 1.5 billion. It is crazy! Of course, the country is totally polluted and creates a massive unhealthy life for a lot of Chinese.

BH – China is a huge country.

CV – Yeah, this is the kind of thing with no solution. Except if you sterilize everybody (laughs), or if we have a thing like a big atomic war, destroying 4 billion people at ones….

BH – Think that if we have this big atomic war, probably we would not have a second chance. Things now seems to be bigger, more powerful than they were before. Every country seems to have a bomb or at least some capacity to build one. At the end of the day, we never really do not know what the big guys are doing to keep peace worldwide. Better believe or be aware that they have a bomb and they’re gonna use it.

The irresponsible Donald Trump

CV – Everything that is politically happening in this world, I’m against it. All the politicians, the decision they do, I’m against. They all go in the wrong direction, as everybody can see, not only me! Did you hear what Trump says about climatic changes for instance? Or fossile energies? And how so many American citizen are enthusiastic about his irresponsible declarations? But nobody cares to about what I’m thinking (laughs). None of my interviews changed anything at all in the world. But I feel better to say it anyway! For posterity. They continue to do their mistakes, one after the other. But are they “mistakes” or part of a plan to take over little by little the Power against WE THE PEOPLE? As the radical islamists try to do with the Muslim world… 1,5 billion of individual submitted to the Quran and its multiple and opposed interpretations.  And I’m even not mentioning all this thing here with Dilma and the PT, Temer and all his endless list of corrupted fellows. Where is the ONE decent politician that will be able to put back Brasil on the right tracks?

BH – Oh, come on, man. There’s a coup d’Etat going on here.

CV - Golpe? Golpe is based on corruption. Corruption at this magnitude must be punished in order to maybe be stopped one day. Everything concerning Dilma has been done by the constitutional book: over 63% of the elected representants voted for the end of her presidency and 70% of the Brazilians agreed with that according to the polls. No militaries in the streets, so where is the “golpe”? Believe me, a “Coup” usually brings blood in the streets and unconstitutional acts. Here, this is not the case, this is why I don’t believe it is a coup. Rational French way of thinking, I guess…

BH – Although I disagree, I do respect your point. At the same time, in this country, I guess if you put all of them in jail, there’ll be more waiting in line. Perhaps this a damned heritage, a thing that started when we were a colony, who knows. By the way, this is a “coup d'Etat a mode brésilienne”.

CV – But this is real. There’s so much money going into those offshore banks. More things will come from this Panama leaks. Wait and see. We’re talking about a small country and there’s thousands of people putting millions of their money illegally there.

BH – That is capitalism, my friend. Bring you money here and then I will multiply it. No rules for that and no boundaries at all.

CV – Because of that, all the poor now have to pay the bills. The poorer more than the middle class have to pay. Forget the rich. The rich, they continue to be billionaires, with money spent in luxury hotels, luxury life, cars, big houses, women...Is their money always “clean” and honestly earned? I am not sure…

BH – That comes from corruption. Basically.

CV – Yes. Money seems to run a lot of peoples crazy. Crazy when they don’t have enough, crazy also when they have way too much! If we don’t have corruption, maybe everybody would be in the middle class. There would be no poor anymore. More money would be put in education, a better health system. It would be a lot better. However, see what happens. They want more and more money and have to find a place to hide it deep. We see that those things are illegal but nobody is under arrest for this corruption as far as I know.

BH – All this crazy things will have to stop someday.

CV – It is a decision politicians seem don’t want to take: no more offshore banks. It’s illegal, but they continue and continue doing the same. Go figure…The UN could create this law in one afternoon. But Countries wouldn’t sign it! They need these fiscal paradises for their own use.

BH – How do you politically define yourself?

CV – I am an anarchist but also believer of a almighty and loving God. I don’t believe in politicians, I don’t believe in holy power from outside, I don’t need anybody to decide for me what is wrong or good. I have my own consciousness, because God is within me, I believe. I don’t need anything from the outside. I can take some for fun, but not because it is a NEED. I don’t need books, I don’t need priests, I don’t need dogmas, because everything I want to know is inside. I can explain this through our modern items. Imagine that you are on the pc (or mac), that faith is the internet connection and that Google is the almighty and loving God I believe in. Any pc is easily able and without any other help to connect with Google and have all the questions answered. I believe it is the same process with each individual; his faith in an inner God is allowing him/her to be connected with and will never walk alone.

BH – And how do you achieve all of that?

Om Mani Padme Hum under the Brasília sun

CV – You go through meditation, yoga practice, this kind of activities.

BH – Some sort of self-education, you mean.

CV – Self-consciousness. Then you have to exercise, to boost your self-consciousness. You do not have self-consciousness by birth, you have to work, meaning you have to spend time on it. First, you need to believe in its existence, of course. It is easier to find something when you know what you are looking for. For that, books written by other truth seekers can be useful to go in the right places and follow their path when it is possible. I strongly recommend “Autobiography of a Yogi, (Yogananda)”. This book has been very useful for my spiritual personal quest and for many others, I heard.

BH – Surely, those things don’t come for free.

CV – You can work on many techniques, like yoga and meditation. When people practice yoga and meditation at one point in their lives, inside them, they may contact God and FEEL His divine presence. When you FEEL something, after it is difficult to deny it, right ? In India this is called namasté, meaning “pure light within”. And what is that? The parcel of God. The third ear, third eye…

BH – Do you spare some time in your daytime to do that?

CV – Yes, in one point in my life I was a yoga teacher in California in the 1980s. I tried to become a master in yoga. But I failed…I will stay an eternal student.

BH – Does that thing reflect in your music?

CV – Yes, because I do lot of new age music. You close your eyes, play and let the music flow, and don’t get that boom-boom-boom type of sound.

BH – Do you like this label, new age?

CV – Yes, I was part of the pioneers of the movement in the early 80s in California. It was the best place to realize those things. Californians are pioneers in many domains, did you noticed?

BH – They had new age radio stations there, right? How was it by that time?

CV – They had all the network structure. Things worked very well. I’ve been with the Windham Hill, did one piano album for them.

BH – You mean the new age label Windham Hill, that one famed with the releases of George Winston’s albums.

CV – Yes, George Winston, Scott Cossu…

Quality background music, according to Allmusic

BH – I like that. Back in the 80s, in Brazil we had many Windham Hill albums available on record shops. I think they sold many copies here. I know there’s this album, Windham Hill’s Piano Sampler 83 compilation with you on one track.

Happy birthday, dad: Jonathan and Cyrille Verdeaux

CV – “Messenger of the Son”, that is the name of the track, which I did as a requiem after the accidental death of my son. He was 4 years old only.

BH – I heard about it. My condolences, amigo. That track is a beautiful piece of music. What a wonderful melody. Was he your only son?

CV – I also have twin daughters, born and living in California. They were born there, they’re American citizens. I think I do prefer that they are Americans and also French. Two passports…better than one, these days…And a young son living in France.

BH – Do you have American nationality as well?

CV – No, I’m just French. To become American you first need to have a Green Card and must have been working there for years. I am a musician and they don’t give Green Cards easy like that. They don’t consider musician as a regular job unless you sell lots of music and pay a lot of taxes. If you don’t sell enough then you are not considered interesting.

BH – You don’t have problems to go there.

CV – As a tourist. I can be there for a limited time. Exactly like Brasil before my marriage…

BH – You did many albums or at least many recordings in America. Do you like to work there?

CV – Officially, I don’t work there. If I do some work for someone else and have to be paid for that, that is considered illegal. But for free, yes, I did a lot of music there (smile).

BH – How many albums you did in the USA?

Impressionist Symphony (2014). Clearlight 's last work is a jewel

CV – I don’t know exactly, in fact, probably six or seven. My last album, “Impressionist Symphony” (2014) I made it in San Francisco while I was visiting my daughters. Steve Hillage, Tim Blake and Didier Malherbe did their parts at their homes in England and France and sent all the material through the internet. And I also recorded some parts in France myself.

BH – Those are the same people you had in “Clearlight Symphony”, your first album, right?

Didier Malherbe

Tim Blake

Steve Hillage

CV – Exactly, they are all Gong members. Daevid Allen died last year. We had been friends for more than forty years now. They sent their numeric files to San Francisco where my friend and record producer Don Falcone worked on his humble home studio, using the Pro-Tools stuff and two computers only. The guy is a genius in Pro-Tools. The drummer was in Arizona, I went there to help him to record his drum parts on my already recorded music. Not easy to do but Paul Sears did great. At the end I had over 20 tracks and did the mixing to stereo myself in San Francisco at Don Falcone’s. The final product is what I consider as my best album. A good album to end the Clearlight series.

BH – Congratulations. It’s in fact a very nice record, one prog fans and music lovers should give a try. In this one, you put some games in the titles, right?

CV – Yes, jokes like Renoir En Couleur, Time is Monet, Van Gogh Third Ear.

BH – “Lautrec Too Lose”. I got it. Again, you did a beautiful job on this one, monsieur. In addition, you had the same line-up of musicians (Hillage, Blake and Malherbe) who played 40 years ago in your first album, Clearlight Symphony. The closing track of Impressionist Symphony, Monet Time, is very interesting, a duet of piano and violin.

CV – It is the same tracks as Time is Monet, which is the fully orchestrated version. When I was mixing this piece, listening one per one each track, I had at one point only the piano and violin open and I found it so beautiful and so different from the same one with all the orchestration that I decided to release it also as a light duet, to end the album lightly. It became the favorite of many…funny…

BH – Why did you decide to do yourself the mixing?

Don Falcone

CV – Who else could do that? I had my archetypes inside me. Don Falcone did for the most part what I was asking him to do and he was a perfect assistant. The best in town, for sure. I have been lucky to have him as a friend. Without him, this album wouldn´t have been achieved.

BH – You recorded this album in San Bruno, California.

CV – No, just some tracks of keyboards and all the acoustic violin. But there’s a very busy airport nearby, San Francisco International! Sometimes we had to interrupt the session with microphones because a big plane was passing over our heads. The airport is just five miles from the studio at Don Falcone’s house. Fortunately, the majority of the planes were taking another corridor, far from the home studio.

BH – Ok. Moving on a little the subject. How long have you been here in Brasília?

CV – I met Fatima, my wife, in 2002 on an internet site. She invited me to come to visit her after a few months of e-mail exchanges, and I found no good reasons to go back to France, I loved Brasilia, I love Fatima, I was divorced, she was divorced... Then in 2006 we decided to get married and here am I for the last 14 years.

BH – Do you like to live in this city?

CV – Yes, Brasília is great. I would not live in São Paulo. They have there all that I hate: pollution, noise, huge traffic jams, violence. Here in Brasília we have a very good way of life, no pollution, and good weather all year, no violence. I love to be here.

Brasília, crazy Cartesian city

BH – I heard from a French person once that here in Brasília is so boring, with this crazy Cartesian design of city, a bit military and a product of a totalitarian mind behind its concept.

CV – I don’t see like that. I think here we have freedom. I drink wine and drive, nothing happens. I feel free here more than in Paris. Evening time, all the bars and restaurants are full of joyful people…This city is fully alive and has a lot to offer!

BH – Yeah, the city is pleasant. Thank you very much for that, but take care next time. They can stop you to check your driving license and think you are on booze which is a bad problem. About Paris, I think you are talking on Europe these days. They are facing bad things there. Terrorism is a big problem nowadays.

CV – Well, I know what a problem with the police is. Back in 1968, when I was a student in Paris, had long hair, beard, the police was always checking our papers, insurance and doing search for drugs.

Street fight in Paris, 1968

BH – Pardon, but I think that by that time you looked like a hippie, monsieur. Were you on the streets barricades?

CV – That was part of my youth. While half were long haired, the other part was reactionary, with short hair, people of the extreme right and there were many street fights between the right and the left wing followers. It seems to come back right now…  France is under pressure again… and again…

BH – Speaking about your first album, Clearlight Symphony, it seems that when you made it that was the first time ever you were in a recording studio. Can you confirm that?

CV – In England, 1974, half at The Manor Studio, Virgin, an other half in the experimental White Noise studio (David Forhaus).

Classic stuff: Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (1973)

BH – Manor studio, which is the same where Mike Oldfield recorded the Tubular Bells.

CV – Exactly.

BH – With the same people, technicians like Simon Heyworth?

CV – It was one year after [the Tubular Bells], so the situation was the same.

BH – I believe the tubular bells were still vibrating in the studio’s air.

CV – They had rented it. The tubular bells were not permanently in the studio.

BH – That was a joke. What are your memories from that time?

It looks like simple but it is a Mellotron

CV – I remember everything. We had no synthesizers; we had the mellotron doing the violins and everything else. I’ve never had a mellotron before. It was very difficult to play it. You had exactly six seconds per note and if you forget, there was a big noise like a clack! So the way to play organ or piano is very different with this keyboard. I think you can put that in the Guinness record for the use of mellotrons in the same album, because we had like 10 tracks of only mellotron doing the choirs, trumpets, saxophone, violons. Didier Malherbe plays saxophone just on side two of that album. Side one is just with mellotron sounds.

BH – Beautiful sounds.

CV – It was my first album and I did it instinctively. It was an experiment, the first time I was in a studio; I didn’t know anything about recording techniques, just theory. Yet, I mixed myself the 16 tracks into two stereo tracks. With little mistakes. Now, if I could remix it with my 40 years experience, it would sound a lot better…

BH – I hope there’ll be a director’s cut someday. Fearless man.

CV – Fearless? (laughs) Virgin didn’t know me, I was totally unknown. The fearless was Branson to sign me!

BH – By that time, Virgin Records was interested in that kind of sound.

CV – It was a time when they were open to this experimental music. Twenty-minutes long of non-stop music on each side of the vinyl record.

BH – In the same vein of Tubular Bells.

CV – Yes, the same format.

BH – Did you meet Mike Oldfield during that time at The Manor sessions?

CV – Never met him in person. I am sad about it, of course. When I started the recordings, he was in a nervous breakdown. Some depression, I heard. He became too rich too fast with Tubular Bells. He was too young to handle it calmly or something like that.

BH – Do you enjoy his albums?

CV – Yes, I love them, especially his first one. He was an influence when I made the Clearlight Symphony, not only the music itself but the format. If Tubular Bells could be twenty minutes long per side, with all the problems of promotion for the airplay on radios, I could do it as well, as long as Virgin agrees. And they agreed…

BH – You did more albums for Virgin.

CV – I did two albums for Virgin Records. Then they fired me because my wife was pregnant and Richard Branson asked me to live in London, in order to take care of my career. My wife said “no, I want to stay in France”. So I had to say “no” also because family first, but when you say no to Richard Branson, that’s the end of the story.

BH – But France is not that far from England.

CV – Sure, but they wanted me there in London to be a Virgin artist, avalaible 24/7 right on the londonian spot.

Richard Branson

BH – Did you meet Richard Branson?

CV – Yes, I signed the contract in his very office, in December 1974.

BH – Do you have some regret of that decision?

CV – No regrets! I was unknown and I was the first and eventually only French artist to sign to Virgin Records, ever. That helped me a lot after to continue to interest producers, especially in California.

BH – The guys of Tangerine Dream did the same, I mean, they signed with that label and started to release albums on Virgin Records, like “Phaedra” and “Stratosfear”. They moved from Germany and became Virgin artists.

CV – Klaus Schulze did the same. I met them at the parties. I wasn’t friend, just said hello ones.

Nico and Tangerine Dream live at Reims Cathedral, 1974

Cyrille Verdeaux, Virgin artist, on the first row at that concert

BH – Edgar Froese died last year. What a sorrow.

CV – So many people died in the last two years, people of the Seventies music. The list is very long. David Bowie, Prince, but also George Martin, a hero, the best ear of the world.

BH – Yeah, on the b-side of the The Beatles’s Yellow Submarine album, it is George Martin and his orchestra, not the Beatles. That’s amazing music and he did much more.

CV – It is amazing to think that “Sgt. Peppers” was made into a four-track machine. Everybody until now asks how could they do that possible.

BH – Yeah, it changed the way one can record an album.

CV – I think George Martin’s masterpiece is Mahavishnu’s Apocalypse. With The London Symphony Orchestra. For me it is in the top of the 20th century albums. George Martin produced that.

BH – Do you self-produce all of your albums?

CV – Yes, except for the first one which was co-produced with Tim Blake. On the others, I chose to be the producer myself to have nobody on the back but I never got royalty checks for producing. Even if I produce, all the money of the sales goes to the label responsible for the releases and they make me pay for their expenses. Each six months they send me a reminder: now you owe me 3 thousand pounds… now you owe me 2,5 thousand pounds…. after all costs of the album covered, (whether it happens) they would pay me 7 %. In a situation like this, you’ll be rich only if you sell one million albums or more.

BH – All of that seems a very unfair business. Would you play with Brazilian musicians, I mean, would you play your music with professionals here?

CV – I played with this Brazilian-based American violinist Ted Falcon, but he was more interested in Brazilian music for commercial purposes.

BH – Are you into Brazilian music? Do you like Bossa-Nova?

CV – No, I do not like Bossa-Nova. Even my Brazilian wife dislike it as well, so there is no problem between us on the matter.

BH - Really? Why is it like that?

CV – It is so boring. It is the same thing always. I like to be surprised by music. Hermeto Pascoal is very nice. Most of the things I know in the Brazilian popular music is the same as 30, 40 years ago. It seems there is no evolution. It is like heavy metal. No evolution. I like progressive music because it evolves all the time!

BH – Don’t you like heavy metal?

CV – I hate it. I’m more into classical music, harmonious melodies and vocals and meaningful virtuosity. I did an album in this style in 2001: " Futur Anterieur". Inspired by Hilldegarde Van Bingen's chants...

BH – C’mon. What about the hard rock sound, like Deep Purple?

CV – When I was young, it was ok. Not nowadays. In fact, I listen to very few music now. I think I’ve burned up everything. All the interest I have in music is gone now.

BH – I don’t believe that.

CV – Nowadays music is so boring. It’s like boom-tschak, boom-tschak, boom-tschak, this trance-disco musique. All with synthesizers playing by themselves.

BH – But you have two albums of trance-like stuff, Tribal Hybrid Concept and Solar Transfusion.

CV – Yes. But I did it my way. With ethnographer Pascal Menetry. By the way, he hang himself few years later for personal reasons. Very sad story…

BH – Oh, man. That’s sad.

CV – On the Tribal Hybrid Concept (THC) album there’s a track named Raoni Song where he speaks and sings.

BH – Is this about that Brazilian Indian, Cacique Raoni?

CV – Yes, from the Caiapó tribe.

BH – Tribal Hybrid Concept, THC? Does that mean maconha?

CV – To be honest, I call it cannabis. This plant can heal cancer, Alzheimer, Parkinson, glaucoma, epilepsy, chronic back pains and plenty of other illnesses. It is well known as such for several millenniums…

BH – A God’s gift, ah?

CV – The Chinese used this for healing purposes already thousands of years ago. Also in India, and many other cultures. I am against this senseless prohibition and amalgame of this natural healing plant with addictive artificial drugs that can kill and run people crazy. As does alcohol, by the way. Is it illegal? Nop…What is the logic in all this mess? Pepe Mujica understood it and made Uruguay the first State of South America to legalize cannabis. And what happens there since? Is it collapsing? More accidental deaths? More violence? Nop… At the contrary! So why Uruguayan peoples should have more freedom than Brazilian peoples? In the name of what?

BH – That’s very controversial, but I think I understand your viewpoint. What is the concept behind the Kundalini Opera project, a set of CDs you released in the 80s?

CV – It was one album per Chakra. We have seven Chakras, so there are seven albums. Trybal Hybrid Concept is the first chakra.

BH – Forgive me, but I don’t understand much about this Chakra thing. All I know is that it deals with the source of energy, something that needs to be harmonized for the health of the body and soul. The second thing is that you had Frederic Rousseau and Jean-Philippe Rykiel, that blind guy, on keyboards on this project.

CV – No problem. Chakra deals with the energy centre of the body. It goes from the bottom to the head. The first one is in the bottom of the spine, the last one in the top of the head, above you. So when you are on the seventh Chakra, the Crown Chakra, that relates to consciousness, there’s no more ego and then you are able to open the Third Eye. You go through that by meditation and yoga. When you do it properly, you start to feel them individually. I know they exist and where they are located because I could feel them. The first Chakra is the vital energy, the second Chakra deals with sexual energy, the third Chakra is the ego energy, the fourth Chakra is the heart energy, fifth Chakra leads to God’s consciousness, the sixth deals with self-knowledge, so you can teach to yourself, from the inside. Usually, it takes seven years to rise the kundalini through each chakra. Meaning that at 50 you should be enlighted for good. But of course, it doesn’t happen usually because our material way of life doesn’t favor the pace of the spiritual evolution. Most of us die before having reached the 5th chakra.

BH – When you are on the seventh Chakra, it means you’re dead, right?

CV – No! Well alive but with no more ego. But it is like you are a saint, like São Francisco, these people know that, because obviously they are never doing things for themselves. Only for others.

BH – Excuse my ignorance. I think you do or try to transmit this with your music.

CV – Yes, I tried to illustrate this musically. The vibration-frequency of the Chakras. It works, because people seems to appreciate it.

BH – It seems that all of your work has this spiritual orientation.

CV – For me music is spirit. Look Johann Sebastian Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Messian, Listz, etc. all this people are spiritual people. And great instrumentists too.

BH – You are saying that you express your spirituality with your records.

CV – You see, music is muse, muses are angels. Angels belong to the next realm (higher also). Therefore, we musicians have this connection with the next realm. At the same time, in the material and the spiritual realm. We can get things from that and can transmit it into paintings, music, whatever. The artistic mission is to share what we can get from that next realm of reality.

BH – You mean, you don’t make art just for yourself. That’s an old question.

CV – All the knowledge that you keep just for yourself is useless. You are useful when you share what you know with anyone you can contact.

BH – This is a very nice concept. I love that.

CV – But nowadays, many musicians cannot spend time on this research. There’s no more money to pay their bills because what does the free download platforms and the streaming is disastrous for independent musicians.

BH – You mean all the music is free on the internet. On the other side, don’t you think that the internet allows your work to become recognizable everywhere to a broader audience? Many people who never heard about the Clearlight stuff suddenly has the opportunity to know your work, even if they download your records for free. They find you then they go for your stuff.

CV – No, that’s done. I am speaking about the future of things. There’s no future for independent musicians and their creations with what is happening. We have to stand on what have been done before, which is pretty good, the music of the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, we have hundreds of thousands of good pieces of music. It’s difficult now to beat with quality what has been done in the past. I think we’ve been trapped on some kind of stagnation. That means we are going backwards. The universe always goes forward. I think that is what is happening to the humanity right now. My point is that my children deserve a better life but theirs will be more difficult life than mine. Mine was more difficult than my parents life. Each generation should’ve go better. But now it is over. That’s why you can see it is going backwards everywhere.

BH – You don’t seem like a pessimist person, monsieur.

CV – No. I am realistic, I see things as they are. I don’t put color when it is black and white. Right now the politic view of the US is shitty with their famous “new world order”. It doesn’t work as they expected obviously. Pollution is shitty. Petrol is shitty, religious wars are shitty, pesticides everywhere is shitty. Does it stop? Nop…they are developing, instead!

BH – You mean modern life is rubbish.

CV – Some aspect of the modern life is definitely rubbish. But some of the traditional life is also rubbish. For instance, Muslims have no freedom at all, even to dress as they want! If you leave Islam, a member of your own family may kill you without going in jail. Same thing if you are homosexual, atheist, free thinker, sex user before marriage, a Christian, a Jew… It is forbidden to believe in something else if you are born in an Islamic country. What kind of religion is that? No freedom to choose it? This hurts my thirst for freedom. I don’t understand why it doesn’t hurt their thirst, to be honest...

BH – Don’t you think that maybe this is a Western way of thinking? Is there a clash of civilizations going on here as they say?

CV – No. In the Fifteenth Century, the Catholics did the same to non catholic Christians as we see radical Islam is doing now. In the Middle Age, there was the terrible Inquisition. The ancestors of my wife were Jews and had to leave Portugal to save their lives. They came to Brazil and settled down in Pernambuco state where in that time there were more Jewish than Catholic Portugueses followers. In the 15th and 16th century radical Catholics were like radical Islam today.

BH – Don’t you fear to make statements like these? Facebook and internet are everywhere. They can misunderstand your point or maybe see you as an enemy. Take care, my friend.

CV – At the contrary, it is a holy duty to point fingers on bad behavior to make them stop if possible. Christians living in Orient are now forced to leave their country to save their lives, as it was for the Jews 5 centuries ago. An endless karmic cycle of religious bullshit. Should we hide this and let this massacre continue by our fear or our indifference? This is not how I picture a true human being. That is bad understanding of what a religion according to Jesus teachings should be, because Jesus said love each other. He never said kill each other. At least the Catholics when they go back to the Gospels may find good advices.

BH – Man, that’s bad. Have you ever been into a Muslim country?

CV – Yeah, I’ve been to Pakistan, Morocco and Tunisia, but I wouldn’t want to go there right now. When I’ve been there it was different, more friendly. Everything changed after Bush's attack on Iraq and their so called “Arabic spring”.

BH – You mean, after the September 11. This world went crazy since then.

CV – Yeah, this is when this craziness started. The Muslim world got a good reason to get crazy when Bush attacked Iraq for something Hussein didn’t do. The Saudi branch of al-Qaida did it, it is not a secret...

BH – Yeah, bad people. They wanted to put Saddam out of this game. Remember they said Saddam had atomic bombs and massive destruction weapons. See what this world became after that.

CV – They are all liars. They’ve created the space for radical Islam to come. They wanted to remove all dictatorships just to have access to oil more comfortably. They did the same thing in Lybia with the exact same results. As a result, millions of terrorized or unemployed refugees from various countries now try to leave the African continent and come to Europe. I don’t tell you what mess Europe is becoming right now and how it helps the extreme European right wing to gain a lot of power and supporters. How can I be optimistic for a next future, knowing all this?

BH – After all these years, it seems that this world became more conservative. And with an old-fashioned mind, don’t you think? You may say Obama is a nice fellow with good intentions, but at the end of the day, they don’t let him do the necessary things in order to improve the poorness in America and also help to boost worldwide peace.

CV – The right wing has the majority at the US Senate because the Americain people decided so in order to disturb Obama. Those people don’t want a real democracy, it seems. First, they elect Obama, and after they elect politicians that will block everything he wants to do, including sale less war machine guns in stores to lunatic peoples! Pathetic, isn’t it ? And of course, Donald Trump is for even more guns in the streets and doesn’t believe in the climate change.

BH – Crazy man.

CV – The only crazy here is not him, because he can think whatever he wants. Crazy is the number of people who want to vote for him. That’s the REAL crazy thing. Donald Trump is one crazy guy but is only one. If millions of people start to think like him, then we will have a big problem. Another one…

BH – I think we have this situation happening here. Look at the people who wants to remove Dilma and wipe out Lula.

Dilma e Lula, traidores da pátria?

CV – Lula and Dilma have betrayed their words and because of that they deserve this situation they created themselves. Obama didn't betray his promesses. He couldn’t do everything he wanted because of the US system that gives to their representatives the power to oppose to the president if they have a majority.

BH – I don’t know. They are not saints, of course, but you see the guys who are in control now. Poor Brazil.

CV – You can have this sympathy for the left wing. The problem is the left wing people are not doing what they have to do. Left wing is supposed to fight against corruption. If you do corruption and rob millions of reais from the people, you go to jail. Same thing for a guy robbing a car, no? Look at Lula and his family. They are so rich now!

BH – I don’t know.

CV – All this money comes from Petrobras, I heard.

BH – Why is he is not in jail? I don’t like to defend him but maybe things are not the way they put us to believe. I see now the movement of the right wing in this country, just to get there. They knew that Dilma’s impeachment thing was the easiest way to take control of Brazil. The other thing very clear to me is that all the opposite parties were complaining of everything on Dilma and Lula because they were on the outside of the show. In simple words, it wasn’t them controlling public money and sparing the share with their friends.

CV – They were jealous. “The left wing is doing what I wanted to do, fuck”.

BH – Exactly. The bad things is there’s no more left wing. Who’s to believe?

CV – There’s less and less difference between right and left wing nowdays.

BH – Know what? Many people still do believe in the red flag.

CV – That’s why I am an anarchist. Forty years now. No flags for me, thank you.  The stars in the sky is my flag. I believe in unity of Man as the solution to solve all the problems.

BH – Hey, listen, I think we went too far with this blah-blah-blah about politics and bad people. Let’s talk about music, please.

CV – Yeah, let´s go back to the musical kingdom, and what is left of it.

BH – Do you find inspiration here in Brasília to still work on the composition process and make new music?

CV – Yeah, I composed Time Is Monet (from Impressionist Symphony) here for instance. The problem is that now I don’t do any more money with music. I do prefer to spend my free time doing less demanding things.

On the piano a rare vinyl copy of Clearlight Symphony

BH – I think I understand. I see you are wearing a Gong shirt. Honestly, you look like a member of the Gong family. Did you meet the late Daevid Allen? Was he your friend?

CV – Yes, my friend for the last 41 years. I met him first in 1972, before I was at Virgin. Our band Babylone I had with Christian Boulé was sometimes playing in the same festival than Gong.

BH – Did you played with him?

CV – They played with me. I hired Gong for my first album (laughs). If they had asked me to play on their albums, I would have gladly accepted. But it didn´t happen.

BH – I think Gong’s Flying Teapot is an incredible album.

CV – Yes, and I was touring with them with my group when they were playing You. Fantastic repertoire…

BH – You come from a country with an amazing tradition of piano music; let us remember Erik Satie, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel for instance. You had this classical training and formal musical education, don’t you?

CV – Yes, French Conservatoire in Paris. Very good school, good teachers…in fact, the best.

BH – I’ve read somewhere you had a Pleyel piano at your parents’.

CV – It was a Gaveau. It is still there at my parents’ country house. It is a piano as good as Pleyel is with beautiful sounds. I used that piano in some of the music I recorded. I composed and recorded Messenger of the Son on it. I rented an 8-track Atari recorder, a mixing board, few people came with their instruments (Rousseau, Rykiel, Boulé) and we did the album there. Probably one of the first albums recorded in a personal home studio. It was in 1980.

BH – Were you familiar with the old keyboards and synthesizers? I mean, stuff like ARP, Moog, PPG, and Prophet 5?

CV – Oh yeah. All these instruments have been used for my first albums. They were as good as the modern stuff.

Jean-Michel Jarre

BH – (Jean-Michel) Jarre used a lot of that stuff. Did you meet him during that time?

CV – I’ve never met him.

Frederick Rousseau and Jean-Michel Jarre

BH – Frederic Rousseau played with you. He’s also on Jarre records.

CV – After the death of my son, I went to the United States and this interrupted my collaboration with Rousseau with whom I was doing concerts with two keyboards at this time. Then I started to do meditation and yoga in the US, which was the time when Rousseau began to work for Jarre. After the death of my son music in France became a difficult issue for me. I had lost the momentum…

BH – Do you like or prefer the analogue equipment? Don’t you think they have a more organic sound?

CV – I do prefer sampled sounds because you can have now a real trumpet or a real drum when you need it, not just an imitation. All the frequencies of the real instruments are there.

BH – Do you like sound manipulation? Things and possibilities samples can offer.

CV – Yes, it is the same sound. What we had before was imitation. Possibilities are unlimited now. If I was a successful musician, I’d go to a recording studio and work on this every day until death does it part. I would also be glad to help people to record their stuff in a studio. Just ask me, folks!

BH – Do you play guitar as well?

Christian Boulé (1951-2002)

CV – Just on my holidays in the country. When I needed a guitar part, I had a guitarist. I had Christian Boulé and Steve Hillage. I wonder I’d play Indian sitar. I even started to study that when I was in India. Amazing instrument, very difficult to tune, especially with the variation of temperature they have in India. These sitarist guys are heroes, I tell you!

BH – I think it must be very difficult to play that. Indian music is based on a different conception of sound.

CV – It is based on the quartertone scales. Western music is based on half tone, a different system. Indians play in between the notes. You can find the quarter tones on the synthesizers. I think in India they can hear details that the Western ear cannot.

BH – Did you use this Indian concept of music in some of your albums?

CV – Yes, I’ve done that on Full Moon Raga, on Visions, the album I released in 1978. I had live sitar, tablas, and tampoora. Didier Lockwood played Indian violin on that. It is a monotonic music, always with the same bass line. But what they do above is just limitless!

BH – You’ve mentioned Lockwood on your albums, he is a brilliant player. What about violinist Jean-Luc Ponty? Did you ever jam with him?

CV – I’ve never met him but I love his music. Especially what he did on Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Apocalypse and Visions of Emerald Beyond. On those albums, he played his best violin. Better than on his owns! The magic of John McLaughlin…

BH – It seems you’ve been away from a recording studio for a while. How do you record your ideas?

CV – I don’t do that anymore.

BH – Pardon.

CV – Why to do it? For what? Nobody wants to distribute it.

BH – Please don’t say that. There’ll always be a listener eager for your new stuff.

CV – I have my phone number on the internet, my website, youtube video clips and it never rings. N-E-V-E-R! So what should I conclude?

BH – Maybe because you are here, hidden in some part of Brazil.

CV – I am on the internet, the world wide web. All my albums are offered for free on the internet now. Why someone would continue to buy them unless he is a collector?

BH – Don’t you have a manager?

CV – Not anymore. It is a bit frustrating now. If there’s a chance to play somewhere, I’m on it. Any time…Thank you for your patience.

BH – Thank you, monsieur. I hope to attend a gig of Clearlight music someday soon. Enjoy your stay here. We have this wonderful warm weather and fantastic tropical fruits too. Go for them. They are good for your health.

Cyrille Verdeaux, master of cosmique musique

Cyrille Verdeaux et Chris Kovacs - Infinite Symphony

Cyrille Verdeaux, Pascal Gutman et Chris Kovacs - Back To The Base

Clearlight music playlists