Daniel Masson is an independent artist, following his own unique style in the electronic and world-fusion music scene as a composer, studio producer and guitarist.
His career has encompassed the rise of popular electronic music, digital instrumentation and world music.
Through trips, including those in Bangladesh, Kenya, India, Cuba, Thailand, Cambodia, Syria and Egypt, he has met and collaborated with many artists from all corners of the world while developing a distinct style weaving diverse music genres from different cultures together in a unique way.
Known for his musical contribution to the hugely popular compilations of Buddha Bar, Daniel Masson has made a career of crossing musical and technical boundaries establishing himself as one of the names in Electro World-chillout music.
Largely self-taught having little formal musical training, at the age of fourteen, he founded a rock band as songwriter and guitarist. His subsequent solo career has encompassed a variety of musical styles and genres including jazz-fusion, progressive rock and electronic music.
Arriving in Paris in 1976, he undertook work as a guitar teacher by day, while performing jazz in clubs at night. During this period, as the first synthesizers arrived on the scene, Masson was one of the first artists to experiment with computer assisted composition. In 1987, he founded, along with his brother Christophe, the Jungle Boys a new wave musical outfit which was contracted to EMI France. For many years, he has also performed as studio producer and session guitarist for a number of artists.
Since then, as the music scene has transformed itself, Daniel Masson increasingly embarked on music programming and studio production scoring a number of high profile TV shows and commercials such as those for France, Darphin, Roger & Gallet, Chopard Watches and Swissair Airlines. His work led Goran Bregovic to ask him to produce music for the movie Queen Margot. The film won a César for best music in 1995. Over the years, Daniel Masson has also produced a large number of video game soundtracks for Ubisoft, Disney Interactive and many others. This has allowed him to explore and experiment other ways of making music. Masson’s work continues to be very much in demand.
Since 1999 and in particular after meeting Bari Siddiqui, a renowned Bangladeshi flautist, who created his own genre of folk fusion of North Indian Classical sounds with Baul traditional music, Daniel Masson has been heavily involved with World Music travelling the globe in search of new sounds, in particular in areas of special spiritual and cultural significance. Each of Masson’s albums tells a story of this journey and of his related encounters with people across the globe.
Masson’s first “music Journey” was via Electromana with “Jet Lag,” which outlined this brand new sound in the electro-world music genre. Since then, Masson has composed and produced nine albums for the “Pacific Islands Collection” at Oceania Records. Each album is a subject of a specific island in the Pacific.
Masson has now founded his own label Jungle Line Records.
With the support of the French Foreign Ministry, Masson returned in 2001 to Bangladesh to record and film the leading musicians of the Baul music tradition. There, he met once again Bari Siddiqui and other artists including Farida Parveen and Bibi Russell, an international fashion designer and UN artist for peace. Two years later, he released “Baul Dimension” an atmospheric recording where digital sounds were fused with human voices and traditional instruments.
Daniel Masson continues to fuse genres, styles, and technologies to create new sounds. With the EP “Bingo “released in 2006 and the “Trempolino” in 2008, Masson worked to bring about a composition style blending ethnic sounds with minimalist electronic music. During 2007, as composer he went to Syria and Egypt to record singers and musicians for the music of “Buddha Bar Travel Impressions”, while Fred Spillmann produced the video. The CD\DVD album was later released in 2008 through George V Records.
Masson has now spent 10 years collecting ethnic sounds and voices to use them in his home studio. His 2009 album “Adventures” reflected this in its collection of old songs remixed, including the track “Fashion for Development” featuring Bibi Russell, Bari Saddiqui amongst other artists.
Daniel Masson released Frequencies on May 2011.
Frequencies has tracks which conjure up travel in India, images of film, of music and fashion. While being first and foremost a musical adventure it conjures up all sorts of colors, ideas and emotions.
Masson describes Frequencies as like “standing in the middle of a digital crossroad of different sound, color and human frequencies like a snapshots set of encounters with people, views of amazing landscapes, discoveries of life of people in huge cities; in the country; in the desert from France to Asia crossing the Middle East and India. The tunes are all small stories as a “carnet de voyages,” a set of sensations and frequencies I felt.”
Frequencies represents an important milestone and development on Daniel Masson’s existing body of work and a hugely enjoyable and memorable piece of musical creation.
During summer 2011, Masson composed an original electronic score for George Melies’ 1904 silent film “The Impossible Voyage.” Melies himself was a great innovator and a leading French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in early cinema, including experimenting with the use of special effects.
On 8th October Masson played this new composition live for the French Night at the Busan International Film Festival. This project, presented by the French Embassy and the French Institute of Seoul also involved Masson playing inside the old Seoul railway station for the opening ceremony of the “Souvenirs from Earth” exhibition.
In addition, Masson in a series of separate events performed excerpts from his Baul Dimension and Frequencies collections at various venues throughout Seoul. He used Ableton Live running on a Mac Book pro with an Akai apc40 as midi controller for these performances.
Daniel Masson is currently preparing a tour in California which will take place at the beginning of 2012.
CREDITS
- Productions
Buddha Bar series / / George V Records
Atlantean / / Atlantis Recordings
Pacific Islands collection / / Oceania Records
- Remix
Angelic Voices // B-Tribe on Buddha Bar vol 6
Breeze // Ratnabali on Siddharta vol 2
- Video games soundtracks
Splinter Cell / Gba / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Rayman 3 / Gba / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Sabrina The Teenage Witch / GBA / / UbiSoft Entertainment / Paramount Interactive USA
Donald PK / Ps2 Game Cube / / Disney Interactive USA / UbiSoft Entertainment
Pod / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Rocky Legends / / UbiSoft Entertainment / MGM Interactive USA
Jungle Book / Gbc / / Disney Interactive/ USA / UbiSoft Entertainment
Bugmonsters / / Montparnasse Multimedia France
Trader 2 / / Monetcristo France
Rayman 2/ Gbc / / UbiSoft Entertainment
World Cup Football 98 / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Artist / PC / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Kitchenette / / Le Lab France
Les 9 destins de Valdo / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Les 3 petits cochons / / Dramaera France
Monaco Grand Prix / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Start Up / / Montecristo France
F1 racing simulation / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Sethi et le Sorcier Inca / / Montparnasse Multimedia France
Tristan et le Mystére du Dragon / / Montparnasse Multimedia France
Street Racer / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Planet of Death / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Rayman Eveil / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Rayman Dictée / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Minimouzz / / Emme Interactive France
Les Mouzz / / Emme Interactive France
Collection Net / / France Telecom multimedia
Tim7 / / UbiSoft Entertainment
1,2,3 Musique / / UbiSoft Entertainment
Genesia / / Microids France
- Film , tv and commercials
La Reine Margot / / Patrice Chéreau
Living the Dream / / BBC documentary
Elastok / / French TV La 5
Air France
Darphin cosmetics
Swissair
Choppard watches
Roger & Galler cosmetics
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