DJ Deep: Guidance

The house and techno aficionado is trying to ensure that the music stays at the centre of music.

“I'm in the 8th arrondissement, close to Saint Lazare train station,” Cyril Etienne des Rosaies, aka DJ Deep, says to me over a Zoom call. I’m tucked away in the kitchen of my apartment in the 13th, close to Place d’Italie metro station. Cyril is around the corner, essentially. Six kilometres away. Give or take.

Another Zoom call. Another Zoom call where the purring of car engines and jarring police sirens soundtrack my conversation with a screen. Another Zoom call where a discussion with a pixelated version of a person is deemed a social interaction. Another Zoom call that will speak of burgeoning hope for 2021. Another Zoom call because of an indiscriminate virus. Another Zoom call enabled by the gormless guidance of politicians.

But in Cyril, Another Zoom call with splendid company.

As DJ Deep, Cyril is widely recognised as an essential figure in the Parisian underground scene and further afield. Whether it be his role as a selector, label head of Deeply Rooted, or producer of rolling techno and ebullient house, he has gifted the masses with an array of dulcet tones and grooves.

His perpetual name-dropping of venerable characters within the scene comes not by way of some egotistical practice. Conversely, Cyril humbly refuses to measure the significance of his storied life, seeing his tales as throwaway comments. About five minutes into the conversation I’m hearing about road trips to London with Laurent Garnier in a Nissan Micra, and, later on, how Kerri Chandler bought his son his first guitar.

“I lived in an era where all the rules exploded.”

Cyril sits in his studio in front of floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelving adorned with a library of records, as if to give me a peak into his world of sonic obsession. The casual nature of his grey Nike hoodie and five o’clock shadow is counteracted with the standard level of sophistication that square glasses naturally exude. This only adds to the ‘handsome European Louis Theroux’ description that I’ve formed in my head.

One preconceived idea of the man that I've gotten wrong is that he can be cold and disgruntled, based on answers I've read in other interviews. The reality is Cyril has the required dose of passion and honesty for a healthy conversation; something he thinks is lacking in this day and age. "People are too agreeable," he says of the current underground scene.

We tend to the typically perfunctory greeting process with vim and vigour. I ask how Cyril has been getting on the past while.

“Good, good! But, like everybody, I'm quite concerned about the future.” As our conversation unfolds, I learn that this anxiety is as much to do with Covid-related matters as it is to do with the state of modern day electronic music: as an artform, a business, and a culture.

“Where are you from?” Cyril asks, trying to get his bearings with who he’s actually talking to.

“Sorry! I’m from Dublin. Ireland,” I laconically respond.

“Ah, I like Dublin! I played in District 8 with Robert Hood before.”

“They got rid of the original District 8 since then actually. Gentrification and all that. So, yeah, Irish nightlife isn't really thriving at the moment.”

“Same in Paris,” Cyril laughs, though, for someone who has championed the Parisian club scene since the 1980s, it isn’t much of a laughing matter.

Raised by his conservative grandparents in the French capital, Cyril attended his first gig at the age of 16 and through habitual dancefloor revelling became friends with revered DJs such as Olivier Le Castor and Guillaume la Tortue. Another important friendship would also blossom from this period. “I would glue my face to the glass in front of the DJ booth and watch him DJ because I had no idea how you mixed records,” Cyril says, almost gluing his face to the camera to demonstrate. “I was trying to learn from listening and one day he grabbed me from the glass. 'What's your problem, man? You come here every Sunday and watch me for 6 hours? What's your problem?' And I'm like, 'I don't know. I want to learn.'“ The DJ was Garnier. And Cyril did indeed learn.

“We’re a movement, we’re culture, we have a history, and we have a strong passion for music.”

Ever since, he has been hooked to house and techno, constantly searching for his next score of Chicago and Detroit cuts. This terminology may annoy Cyril. He has been critical of the way in which drugs and electronic music have been conflated. Not so much by onlooking commentators, but by those actively partaking in this demimonde of nightlife culture.

“In French, we have this expression: the snake that eats its own tail (Un serpent qui se mord la queue),” he says, apologising for his English – something that will become a regular yet unnecessary occurrence, as I understand him perfectly fine. “On the one hand you have some people who choose to show images which are very offensive, of people super high on drugs and listening to the hardest, loudest boom boom boom boom, and they're like, 'OK, this is what they call music. This is what they call culture. Look at this, it's just about drugs.' On the other hand, what bothers me is when I’m in the record store and I hear these kids who are young DJs, and they're like, 'Oh, come on, man. Like we're going to go out and not do drugs, right?' So, basically, they use the language of the people criticising them.”

Cyril, who abstains from alcohol and drugs, composes himself. He is perhaps wary that he doesn’t want to come across as a weathered veteran scolding the youth. “Everybody is free. But we're a movement, we're culture, we have a history, and we have a strong passion for music,” he says fervently. “I'm not criticising people having fun or drugs. I'm just saying, I would hope after 30 years of this music existing that some people would raise a voice which is a little bit more spiritual and deeper than, 'Ugh, let's go and get high.'“

Though Cyril surprises himself when he realises that he is turning 50 this year, his face lights up with ecstasy when eulogizing the French capital’s club scene in the 1990s during his own youth.

“How was Paris’ nightlife during this ti-” I’m unable to finish my question as the cogs in Cyril’s brain instantly flashback to this time of exuberant excursions in Rex Club and La Luna, alongside the likes of St. Germain and Detroit’s “Mad” Mike Banks.

“It was amazing, man. Amazing. I realise today it was fucking amazing,” Cyril testifies. “You know why? Because today I think we are unfortunately living in a form of dictatorship, y’know. We're in a scene where everyone claims for freedom but they're very conservative in their mind. They cannot seem to think outside the box. I lived in an era where all the rules exploded. It was Keith Haring and Picasso. It was gay and straight. In the clubs you had a lot of Black people, Asians – people from different social and cultural origins. Everyone was accepting each other.”

Cyril is partly critical of the younger generations and their approach to the music, but it comes from a paternal place of genuine concern, because he wants the best for the culture. “I swear I'm not a nostalgic person. I'm in love with new music and talented people,” he pleads. “(But) I can't help but notice this new techno trend of really fast BPM, and to me, if music doesn't have a little bit of soul, a little bit of swing, then I'm not there anymore.”

He repeatedly praises the likes of Call Super, Joy Orbison, Parris, and collaborator Roman Poncet for what they are doing for the contemporary scene, but fears that many have lost sight of what it is really all about: the music. “The culture of house and techno is sometimes really fading away, I feel,” Cyril laments, referring to young DJs he’s encountered who seem more concerned with their branding than the tracks that they are playing. “Because I witness music bring people together and connect people together in such a strong way, it is precious to me. As a music lover, I hope music is going to be at the centre of music again, and not just marketing and communication on Instagram.”

“This person is making you change the way you see things and how you interact with things.”

And with Cyril now a father to a little boy, his assistance to young people through their life and music endeavours has become a lot more personal. “As I'm sure you know now, I'm a very doubting person. I'm always pondering things and hesitating, so of course, to have a kid I feel very responsible for him. He's also a great source of inspiration,” he says candidly. “As a father, same thing as a DJ or a producer, I'm learning everyday. I think I know things, and then this person in front of you who happens to be the person you love the most on the planet – but you didn't know him before he was born – this person is making you change the way you see things and how you interact with things.”

Intrigued by how he will pass on his incomprehensible level of knowledge and experience onto his son, I ask if he’s going to have to have a word with him about not letting other distractions get in the way of pushing this community and culture forward. “I'm asking myself this question everyday. Of course, I want him to live his happy life and to discover music,” Cyril says. “I don't want to interfere too much, you know, he has his own taste and he does his thing. I would love this to stay like that.”

Cyril’s sense of critique has clearly rubbed off on his son, however, as he is often telling his Dad what he makes of the new records he has just bought: “It's nice but I'm not sure it's as good as a classic Carl Craig techno record,” Cyril once heard the 11-year-old mutter.

I’m keen to get a nugget of wisdom from the man for myself, so I look for his overarching mantra for any young person going forward in life.

“Build your own taste. That is something that is very important today. To have this sense of critic, and say, 'Ok, what do I really like? What does it take to get this sound? Let me be in my own little garden so when I have my own little garden I know what flowers I want to grow,'“ Cyril says, reminiscent of an absurdly genius Eric Cantona rant.

I try to clarify. “So, develop an identity?”

“Exactly.”

Photography: Layla Gras

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