Inside Five: Picard Brothers

The Picard Brothers have become a supernatural force within pop music in recent years, having delivered songwriting and production credits for Beyonce, Dua Lipa, Mark Ronson, Major Lazer, Rudimental and more. 

However, more recently, the French brothers have placed a firm focus on their own duo project. Inspired by legendary French electronic artists Alan Braxe, Cassius, Daft Punk and Laurent Garnier. The duo believed it was about time they bring their own fresh take on the French touch sound. “We think we owe it to a past era,” they explain. “But it’s not a basic tribute – it’s combined with another thing: feeling”.

We sat down with the brothers to find out more about their influences, their recent release ‘Blessing in This House’ and what they have planned for the rest of the year.

Hello guys, welcome to Mr. Afterparty. For our readers, can you introduce yourselves – tell us about how you got into dance music?

We are Maxime and Clement, two brothers from Paris. We’ve been producing music for a little while now for different artists such as Mark Ronson, Beyonce, Diplo, Madonna, Dua Lipa… And we’re finally working on our very own project to make the music we always wanted to make and have people dancing to it at the same time…

We got into dance music watching music videos late at night when MTV stopped playing regular music and switched into more experimental stuff. Daft Punk « Da Funk » and Aphex Twin « windowlicker » videos were two mind-blowing experiences that got us instantly addicted to electro music.

What artists have influenced you most and why? 

All the French house artists from the late 90s early 2000s have always been a massive inspiration for us. We are always in awe of music that everybody likes but yet is super genuine and sincere. 

The likes of Cassius, Alan Braxe and Daft Punk were making music so pure you really didn’t have to understand it to enjoy it. Just good music regardless of any genre or music label. The energy around it was amazing and is definitely one of our main sources of inspiration.

We’re really digging your recent release ‘Blessing in This House’, and what a cool remix by Cinthie too; how did this come about?

We have always been super impressed with everything Cinthie is doing; every release she has is always super elegant and interesting.

We didn’t know her personally before this remix, so we just asked her, and she kindly accepted. We are really honoured to have her flip ‘Blessing in This House’. She added an extra level of fun to it; we can’t wait to play it in a club, or ideally, at a beach party.

We’re really intrigued to find out more about your process when getting in the studio to work on records. Do you have a usual workflow or process?

Our workflow changes all the time; recently, we’ve been a little more focused on getting the songwriting perfect before starting the song production. 

It’s important to make sure you’re never using a formula when you’re making music; having fun should always be what leads you.

We are also really attached to letting a big space for randomness in our music; we love to tweak stuff, resample ourselves, make unorthodox decisions…basically anything that can produce a happy accident. 

What have you got planned for the rest of the year? Anything you can reveal to us now?

We’ve got a couple of remixes coming out; the next one is for Myd (Edbanger), then Para One. We have also just released one for Claptone a couple of days ago!

We’re planning to release our next single, ‘Best Of Me’, during the summer as well, and we’re extremely excited to get this one out! I think it’s our best tune so far, and it’s another track we can’t wait to play at a beach party, lol.

Thanks for taking the time to speak with us, and I am sure we will see you at a beach party or club soon 😉

Thanks for having us 🙂