Michael Mateescu is a programmer and one of the founders of Paris International Festival of Psychedelic Music. He’s also a programmer at La Machine du Moulin Rouge, one of the greatest clubs in Paris.
What are your biggest focus areas in 2015?
I am currently focusing on the second edition of Paris International Festival of Psychedelic Music. It will happen early July in Paris and last for 5 days. We have six venues confirmed and we will have music, art and cinema. Plus we’ve launched ‘’Cosmos’’ which is a bit of the festival new born child – psych music, art and cinema events in Paris, others cities in France and abroad from January to December. We have an amazing team working on these two projects with brilliant people and all of us are very excited about this.
Regarding La Machine, we are now working on the line-ups for summer/fall and there are a lot of nice things to come. I’m also working with a new club/concert venue in Paris that is called Monseigneur. We’ve launched a free entry concert residency every Tuesday called ‘’Tuesday Live’’. It’s all about great bands, beer, delicious burgers and currywursts.
How does a festival like by:Larm contribute to the music industry?
I’ve never been to by:Larm before but all the people who have been there told me that it was definitely the place to be. I really like the idea of having music showcases and conferences in the same festival. By:Larm is mainly focused on the Nordic music scene, which is a very promising scene in my opinion, and it’s a great chance to discover new bands and artists in order to bring them to France in the future. It’s also a massive opportunity to meet music industry people from all over the world and to connect to Nordic music business.
We have two similar festivals in France (Nuits Sonores/European Lab in Lyon and Les Transmusicales in Rennes) and both of them are wicked festivals.
How do you see the Nordic/Norwegian music scene evolving?
There are a lot of very good bands and artists in Norway. I’ve heard a lot of good quality music coming from Nordic countries and especially Norway in the past months. I’m sure that the scene will keep growing in the future.
And finally, which Norwegian meal will you NOT be trying?
It will be my first time in Norway and I’ve never eaten Norwegian food as far as I can remember. So I’m pretty open to discover everything about Norwegian cuisine. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, I’ll try as many local meals as possible.
Photo: David Servan-Schreiber