Irène Drésel: "My primary goal is to generate thrills, emotion, and power"

Irène Drésel carves out a singular space in French electronic music, shaping techno into something lush, physical and ritualistic. Built on sharp rhythms, bells, percussion and a highly visual stage language, her sound feels both precise and untamed.

With Sizo Del Givry on percussion, her live shows unfold like a rose-tinted pagan ceremony. Her albums Hyper Cristal (2019), Kinky Dogma (2021) and Rose Fluo (2024) brought her from underground acclaim to sold-out stages including Olympia and Zénith, as well as the Stade de France for the Paris 2024 Paralympic closing ceremony.

Also active in film, Drésel won the César for Best Original Music for Éric Gravel’s Full Time. She and Sizo Del Givry have now composed the score for Guillaume Nicloux’s upcoming thriller Mi Amor.

In your remix of "Lubies" for Ascendant Vierge, where did you choose to enter the track: through its body, its fever, or its more hidden edges?

UK

I started with what was the essence of this piece, namely the main melody associated with its bassline, and then I isolated the word “breathe” from the lyrics sung by the singer Mathilde Fernandez. My goal was to recapture the emotion inherent in the original piece “Lubies”, while taking it elsewhere to create something ethereal, dreamlike, something both hypnotic and ecstatic.

FR

Je suis partie de ce qui était pour l’essence de ce morceau, à savoir la mélodie principale associée à sa basse, et puis j’ai isolé le mot “respirer” des paroles chantées par la chanteuse Mathilde Fernandez. Mon but était de retrouver l’émotion inhérente au morceau original “Lubies”, tout en l’emmenant ailleurs pour créer quelque chose d’éthéré, de l’ordre de la rêverie, quelque chose d’à la fois hypnotique et extatique.

Your techno often feels closer to a ritual than to a conventional club construction. When you compose, do you first search for physical impact or for an inner image?

UK

Both! My primary goal is to generate thrills, emotion, and power. Indeed, I don't dwell on being conventional because I don't necessarily go to clubs myself.

FR

Les deux! Je recherche avant tout à générer des frissons, de l’émotion, de la puissance. Effectivement je ne m’attarde pas à être conventionnelle car je ne vais pas forcément en club moi-même.. 

Bells, percussion, flowers, fluorescent pink, tension: your universe is instantly recognizable. Do you ever feel the need to betray it in order to discover something new?

UK

I don't really do it on purpose; I use the sounds I love in my songs, the world that speaks to me. At home, there are flowers everywhere; it's in my DNA. Last summer, for the first time, I released a song. The track is called "Cascade" and references the fairy tale "The Fairies" by Charles Perrault… in which pearls, flowers, and diamonds are mentioned…

FR

Je ne fais pas vraiment exprès, j’utilise dans mes morceaux les sonorités que j’aime, l’univers qui me parle. Chez moi il y a des fleurs partout, c’est mon ADN. L’été dernier, pour la première fois, j’ai sorti une chanson. Le morceau s’appelle “Cascade” et fait référence au conte “Les Fées” de Charles Perrault…. dans ce conte sont évoqués des perles, des fleurs, des diamants …

With Sizo Del Givry, the live show almost feels like a two-headed creature. What happens between you on stage that could never be born the same way in the studio?

UK

In the studio, the chemistry is completely different. The audience is missing, the atmosphere is nothing like it used to be!

FR

En studio ce n’est pas du tout la même alchimie. Il manque le public, l’ambiance n’a absolument rien à voir! 

For Mi Amor, which you composed with Sizo for Guillaume Nicloux’s upcoming film, the story seems to move through night, the Canary Islands, disappearance, and a party slipping into danger. How did you approach a score that doesn’t explain the thriller, but deepens its mystery?

UK

We composed the music based on the screenplay, before the film was even shot. We focused mainly on the overall atmosphere the director had created. It was incredibly exciting to compose the music for a world centered around a cult. Thrillers set in broad daylight are my favorite kind of screenplays! We used a lot of real instruments: a recorder, a zither... you can also hear my voice; I invented an imaginary language for some of the tracks. It was an incredibly rich and varied project. There's music throughout the entire film; the soundtrack has 35 tracks in total, a triple vinyl record!

FR

Nous avons composé la musique à partir du scénario, avant que le film ne soit tourné. On s’est surtout concentré sur l’ambiance générale que le réalisateur avait installée. C’était hyper excitant de composer la musique d’un univers autour d’une secte. Les thriller qui se passent en plein jour, ce sont les scénarios que je préfère ! Beaucoup d’instruments réels ont été utilisés :  une flûte à bec, une cithare.. on entend aussi ma voix, j’ai inventé une langue imaginaire sur certains morceaux. C’était un projet hyper riche et varié. Il y a de la musique sur tout le film, la bande originale compte en tout 35 morceaux, un triple vinyle !

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