AkA (33)

The AkA electronic music project was incepted in the early 90’s by Henri Sizaret, a French audiophile who was fascinated by the simple idea of being able to create sounds and emotions from zero. Indeed, as an expat who spent his youth in various Latin American and European countries, Henri quickly absorbed a wide palette of music styles, with a knack for 70’s disco and 80’s new wave. As synthesisers and computers started their democratisation in the 90’s, Henri was unconditionally attracted by their sci-fi looks looks, the prospects to create music from a single wave. At first, the project took the form of “ElectroCute” as a way to learn about electronic sound sculpture, where tracks often would develop from single loops, samples or waves, into full electro pop tunes. In 2000, after nearly 200 unreleased compositions, and having forged his sonic imprint, Henri renamed the project into AkA, a simple palindrome suggesting multiple points of views. Since then, the AkA style has progressively shifted towards pure sounds and confident rhythms, but always with computers, sampling and digital synthesis as base tools to generate music. The result? According to DSO Audio “AkA is a Tsunami of 0’s and 1’s” with “a witty sense of humour, incredible visuals and pristine audio to experience and enjoy.” To others, AkA will remind of a “furious and sarcastic Kraftwerk”, but perhaps the core words that best describe Henri’s works are DADA as AkA collides seemingly unrelated themes, sounds and images that build into improbable poems, RHYTHMS explored in all forms as a pulse for life, and DIGITAL for AKA unconditional love for the modernist possibilities offered by digital audio and video.