France's Answer to Brian Eno was Born in a Cave

June, 1944, and much of France is still under German occupation. In the south-eastern town of Grenoble, at the foot of the French Alps, a Jewish couple, involved in the resistance, hide from the Nazis in a cave. In this darkness a child was born who would change the face of French experimental music.

Named Bernard Szajner, he became a maker of strange, sci-fi infused conceptual synth-pop and a creator of instruments. Described as the “French Brian Eno”, he designed all-encompassing light shows for The Who, Magma and the hugely influential modern composer Olivier Messiaen, before going on to collaborate with Howard Devoto of Magazine and Karel Beer in The (Hypothetical) Prophets.

Then, in the late 80s and to the shock of many, the growing genius of Szajner withdrew, and he turned his back on the music industry. But, encouraged by a persistent fan and by the acclaim of Detroit techno legend Carl Craig, he's returned to recording, and has just had his 1979 album Visions of Dune (inspired by the classic Frank Herbert sci-fi novel, later made into a film by David Lynch) re-released, alongside two additional tracks deemed “too futuristic” by his record company at the time. A man who has always strived to be ahead of his time is on the verge of becoming a French cultural institution.

For Szajner, though, this current moment is just another part of the same ongoing project, one that began all those years ago in the darkness of the Alpine cave. “I was born and I stayed in that cave for a few months, and because they were hiding the light was always turned off. I was in total darkness for the first few months of my life”, he tells me. “The situation began to get better, so they dared to switch on a light which was hanging from the ceiling of the cave. When they turned this light on, there was a sound, a click from the string hanging from the ceiling. So, the first time I ever saw light I heard a sound in sync with it”.

When his parents told him this story, Bernard was already a young man. But the significance of it hit him like the flash of light from a bulb attached to the roof of a cave. “This moment was crucial, I suspect, and I think it has orientated my entire life towards this research of synchronising things together. I have always tried to unite sound, music, vision, everything”.

Fascinated by the “primitive sensation” of light, Bernard began creating light shows in the early 70s. As far as he was concerned, The Who didn’t properly link their music to the images he created, and it’s something he also feels about modern laptop guys, with their flimsy, non-specific visual backdrops. This wasn’t true of Magma, the French prog band Bernard started working with. Magma had created their own interlocking universe, masterminded by their leader Christian Vander. He created a planet, Kobaïa - with its own Kobaïan language - which served as the setting for a “space opera” that spanned 10 (yes, 10) concept albums. The concept came with an attitude, Zeuhl, and it underpinned everything they did.

For Bernard, this kind of acid-fried, deep space probing, high concept 70s experimentalism was exactly what he wanted to be a part of. “As soon as I started creating light shows, I worked with Magma. They didn’t compromise. Christian said ‘Each note you play must weigh a ton’. That was very impressive to me at a time when most pop musicians were playing keyboard like they were playing a guitar, with too many notes – his attitude was ‘Let us choose each note we play’. This has been a lesson to me that has stayed all my life, though I must tell you right away that I am still incapable of choosing my notes in their sense. I’m trying to, I’m getting to it, but I’m not there yet!”

Unlike the keyboard-wielding wizards of Magma, Bernard was not an expert musician. “I never learnt to play keyboard so I had to build instruments I could play. These instruments are made in function of my incapacities of playing”, he says. A pioneer in laser technology and robotics, his best-known creation is probably the laser harp, which Bernard played live and which was then popularised by Jean-Michel Jarre (“He has been aiming for the most spectacular thing, but I am not interested in being spectacular”, Bernard says of Jarre).

Day to day, it was the use of synthesisers that was more important to him, particularly while making his early records. A friend gave him some sequencers and synthesisers and he made loop on loop on loop. “From then on, I more or less stopped listening to music because I wanted to be entirely with what I was creating”. In the 80s, not only did he stop listening to music, he stopped making it, because he felt like he didn’t have anything to say musically. He gave all his synthesisers to a school so that his “big modular machines, very complex to move around and sensitive to heat” could be used by future generations.

Then, about eight years ago, a fan wrote to him, again and again. Bernard met him for coffee. The fan showed Bernard a magazine, which had an interview with Carl Craig in it. Bernard didn’t think he was interested in techno but the fan told him about Detroit, this industrial city with a rich musical heritage and Bernard thought, “That could be interesting.”

In the magazine there was an all-time top 10 from Craig, which featured Bernard’s album Some Deaths Take Forever, which is about death row and is dedicated to Amnesty International, at number one. For Craig, Bernard had been a huge influence. “That was important,” he explains, “because it helped me go back. It let me feel that what I’d done was not completely unnecessary, that I’d helped other people make music”. Earlier this year, Bernard finally met Craig – he listened to the techno DJ’s work and liked it – and a collaboration may be in the offing.

Today, Bernard makes music again and he makes it on computers. “The old school people will be angry at me for saying that I work with computers,” Bernard says, “because they love the old vintage sounds that I’m absolutely not interested in. Whether I use vintage sounds or not is irrelevant. As Picasso said, ‘When I don’t have blue, I paint with red’. This is exactly my attitude.” Despite using computers, though, he still works with what he has made: “I want something very physical – something I have to fight against to make sound, to twist, pull, push and move. It has to be very tactile”.

When I ask him about his influences, Bernard talks about Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and Terry Riley, but he isn’t lying when he says he barely listens to music. When I ask him about contemporary music, Bernard says “There’s only one I can think of right now, because he’s on French radio so much” – he takes a minute to remember his name – “Stromae, a Belgian. He’s got an incredible talent, he’ll be huge.”

What Bernard brings to music is something he’s always worked on: an all-encompassing vision that sees sound and vision working in harmony with each other, linked inextricably to create a complete atmosphere. Visions of Dune may sound like the kind of thing you’d expect to find eulogised on a Fans of Spock message board, but it’s a weird, wonderful and unique record and when Bernard performs live, that moment of revelation in the Alpine cave is brought to the public - a beautiful synchronicity for all to enjoy.

Bernard Szajner will be live streaming an event tomorrow. Watch it here.

Visions of Dune is out now

For tour dates and other stuff, visit Bernard’s website

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