Biography / Trivia

Stéphane Picq began composing game music in 1988. He mainly worked on computer games and has been the main in-house composer for Cryo (ex-Ère Informatique and Exxos). His music style is primarily a mix of world, new age, electronic and trance. He mentioned that he is fascinated by all kinds of altered-state-of-consciousness-music, mainly shamanic ritual music, and techno-trance, but also some sacred music and some meditative "new-age" music. In october of 1998, he departed from France to go live at the Madagascar island, near the east coast of Africa. Stéphane wanted to forget about computers and games, and start a different life, because he believed that after having spent 10 years doing game music, it was time for a change. Sadly, he hasn't written any piece of game music since then.

All hopes of a return should not be thrown away though; Stéphane posted at the "Abandonware Forums" in february 2006, mentioning he was back in France to gather some stuff before heading back in Madagascar, and that he was in the process of building a studio there. Another thing that was mentioned is the posibility of an album release, which would be a double CD one containing exclusive material, from titles like KGB, Mission Galaxia, Commander Blood, MegaRace, etc. Nothing was confirmed about it yet. In the news section of the Shooting Star label website in autumn 2006, there has been an announcement that Stéphane has started back doing music and that an album is on the way.

His musical influences are (as stated on his website):

• MIDDLE-EAST music
• AFRICAN music
• INDIAN music
• BALINESE music
• RITUAL, SACRED, HOLY, SHAMANIC music of the whole world.
• The good AMBIENT (if it's music)
• The good JUNGLE / TRIP-HOP (one find some weird stuff under this denomination)
• The good TECHNO-TRANSE (there is not so much...)
• The good NEW-AGE (there is even less!)
• Classical music
• sometimes I listen also some progressive rock, heavy metal, trash, blues.

And influential artists:

• ASTRAL PROJECTION
• BLACK SABBATH
• BJÖRK
• BRIAN ENO
• DAVID HYKES
• DEAD CAN DANCE
• DEPECHE MODE
• ENNIO MORRICONE
• ENYA
• EMIR KUSTURICA
• ERIC SATIE
• FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON
• GONG
• HALLUCINOGEN
• JOHN BARRY
• KATE BUSH
• KING KRIMSON (the eighties series)
• KRAFTWERK
• MAGMA
• MALICORNE
• MEAT BEAT
• MIKE OLDFIELD (some)
• MINISTRY
• MOZART
• NUSRAT FATEH ALI KHAN
• PETER GABRIEL (mostly Passion)
• PHILIP GLASS
• PIERRE HENRI
• PINK FLOYD
• SHYLOCK (I'm sure you don't know this one!)
• STEVE ROACH
• STRAVINSKY
• TANGERINE DREAM
• TALK TALK ("Spirit of Eden" is great!)
• THE ORB
• TRANS-GLOBAL UNDERGROUND
• VIVALDI
• WIM WERTENS
• YES

Here is a list of the equipment Stéphane used to create his music:

• Kawai K4
• Korg WS (Only for the DUNE CD)
• Yamaha SY77 (Only for the DUNE CD)
• Roland D70
• Roland S750 18 Mb.
• Novation Bass-Station
• E-mu Morpheus
• Yamaha TX-81Z
• Vocoder Roland SVC 350
• Midi-ized EMS synthi-A (with the 1973's AKS digital sequencer, still working! )
• Pentium 150 32Mb/5Gb storage+ Steinberg Cubase+Session+many appz...
• Digidesign Audiomedia III
• Creative labs AWE32
• Mackie CR 1604 mixer
• Roland A-880 midi patcher
• Lexicon LXP-5
• Boss SE-50
• Berhinger Ultrafex II
• Dozens of acoustic things without headphones plugs, but in the forest or on the seashore, it's more handy:
  • Djembes
  • Darbookas
  • Double stone-flute
  • Ocarinas
  • Quena
  • Flutes
  • Sanzas
  • Didgeridoo
  • Guimbards
  • Tibetan bowls
  • My voice

Albums (5)

Albums - as arranger (1)