Tour-Maubourg has established himself as a key figure in today’s electronic music scene, thanks to a unique sonic signature blending jazz, electronic, and house music, with over 40 million streams across platforms. From the outset, his single 'Manhattan to Brooklyn' and early EPs quickly attracted a wide audience. His debut album, 'Paradis Artificiels' (2020), marked a turning point, amassing millions streams and receiving unanimous critical acclaim. Three years later, 'Spaces of Silence' (2023) confirmed his versatility, delving into more introspective sounds while remaining rooted in an organic and emotional musical approach. His music has taken him to the stages of some of Europe’s most renowned clubs and festivals. In 2024, he unveils a new project with the Tour-Maubourg Ensemble and launches 'The Panorama Sessions', a series of EPs revisiting his key tracks alongside a handpicked collective of musicians. This project takes him across Europe, while he continues to energize club crowds with his solo sets - a duality that showcases the full breadth of the French-Belgian producer’s musical and stagecraft talents.
Could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background and what first pulled you into electronic music?
I'm Tour-Maubourg, a producer and DJ originally from Belgium. I didn't grow up in a particularly musical household, but my parents enrolled me in music classes early on. I started with drums, then moved to bass, guitar, and even some choir singing. My first real passion was indie, pop and rock music, but when I moved to Montreal for my studies, I suddenly had no one to play with. So I started making beats alone in my student room, and that's when everything shifted. I discovered the incredible possibilities of electronic music, the fact that I could craft entire songs entirely by myself. House and deep house came into my life around the same time, through events like Picnic Électronik and the broader Montreal electronic scene.
If you had to describe your sound in three words, what would they be?
Warm, nostalgic, elegant.
You're originally from Belgium. What drew you to Paris, and in what ways has the city shaped you since?
After two years in Montreal, where, honestly, I had stopped going to most of my classes and was just doing the bare minimum to pass my exams, I realized it made more sense to go back to Belgium and focus on music properly. It had taken over everything. Any minute I wasn't making music felt like a minute wasted. So I moved back, did a year of electronic music production at SAE, and then quickly realized I couldn't find people around me who were into the same sounds I loved : NYC, Chicago, Detroit house. Paris felt like the natural next step; the house scene there seemed far more developed. I also knew of Flabaire from a distance (we were in the same high school in Brussels), who had just started DKO Records, and being a fan of the label, that felt like another reason to make the move. Labels and collectives like DKO and La mamies, and clubs like Concrete, really shaped my understanding of the music, they were my entry point into Parisian nightlife.
How does the Paris scene compare to other European club hotspots like London or Berlin?
It's hard for me to say with much authority these days, since I split my time between Paris and Brussels and I don't really go out much anymore. I mostly show up to clubs to play, then spend the rest of my time in the studio. But from what I can observe through playing: Paris has a genuinely great scene, but it's less diverse than cities like London or Berlin. Sound systems also are less of a priority there. In London, even a random bar tends to have a decent rig. In Paris, you can count the clubs with great sound systems on one hand.
What does a typical day look like for you right now?
I'm lucky enough to have been working on music full-time since March 2020, when COVID hit and I was able to leave my day job behind. A typical day starts at 7am : coffee, shower, then straight down to my studio in the basement. I make music until I run out of ideas, usually around 1 or 2pm. Then I grab a bite, almost always a homemade sandwich, and switch to the less creative side of things: social media, emails, digging for music. After that, a 45-minute run or workout, and then back to the studio until my girlfriend gets home around 7pm. We cook a nice dinner, watch something, and go to sleep at 11pm sharp (haha). Then it starts all over again. Honestly, even with all of that, the days still feel too short. There's never quite enough time.
You recently released the "Dreams" EP on Noire & Blanche. What's your process for taking a first spark of an idea and turning it into a finished release?
It really varies. I have no single way of starting a track. Sometimes it's a line I hear in a TV show; the vocal samples on "Only Love Is Real," for instance, came from a famous 2000’s tv show (I can’t disclose sample totally sorry). Other times it's a new synth I've just bought, or a recording of a musician I've had sitting around for a while that suddenly sparks something new. I compose every day, so in a sense, anything can be the starting point. That said, I probably release maybe 10% of what I actually make. It takes a lot of studio time and a lot of tracks that don't quite make it to end up with something worth putting out as an EP.
Your productions often have a warm analog feel. What's at the heart of your studio setup, and which pieces of gear do you reach for most?
I like combining digital and analog. Ableton is the main hub, but 90% of what you actually hear comes from hardware. All my synths, samplers and so on run through a Midas Venice 32, which is hooked up to my interface. Eight outputs from the interface feed back into the mixer for processing anything that's already been recorded or is coming straight from the computer : a vocal sample from a TV show on which I want to add delay, or a kick I want to run through an effect, for example. So composition and creative processing happen in the analog world; arranging and mixing I mostly do in the box. I'm more comfortable with plug-ins I know well, and I can always undo without having to photograph my mixer settings. I've mixed some tracks fully out of the box, but I've never been completely happy with the results.
As for the gear I reach for most:
MPC2000XL : my favourite piece, used daily, almost exclusively for drums. It's all about the workflow. Having to physically play everything in makes it so much more fun and intuitive than clicking through drum patterns on a screen.
Yamaha TX7 / TX81Z : I've had these for years and never really warmed to them until about seven or eight months ago. The sounds are kind of rough, but they have a grit and a way of sitting in the mix that's just extraordinary. They feel very 90s, but not in a plug-in way , they feel real. The artifacts that FM synthesis creates give everything a sense that someone is actually playing an instrument. Hard to explain, but you hear it.
Behringer Model D : 99% of the time I use it in its simplest form for bass sounds: one oscillator, a basic saw or square wave. I also have a Sub 25, but it never sits as well in the mix.
Yamaha P140 : my main keyboard and piano. It's a study piano I "borrowed" from my sister and never returned. Great because it has MIDI, a weighted keybed which feels much nicer to play, and a handful of genuinely useful sounds, Rhodes, DX7, bass, organ, classical keyboard.
Strymon Timeline / Polymoon : delay is the greatest effect of all IMO. It creates space, handles transitions, can do chorus and flanger territory too. When I'm stuck, I just run things through delay, record long takes, and work from there.
Eventide H3000 : my most expensive piece of gear, and easily my best. A top-tier multi-effects unit with over 900 presets, and they all sound absolutely fantastic. You can't put it on everything, it can crowd a mix, but on one or two elements you really want to stand out, there's nothing better.
You collaborate with other musicians quite a lot. What makes a collaboration click for you, and what do you look for in the people you work with?
It depends on the context. For remote collaborations, the most important things are the music itself and the other person's professionalism,do we connect musically, and do they have a clear vision? In person, it's different: music is genuinely how I make friends. I'll just invite people over and we'll have fun. Sometimes something comes out of it that gets released, most of the time it doesn't. Either way, what matters most to me is working with people who are open minded.
Which artists have really impressed you lately, and what is it about their work that hits you?
If I had to pick one producer who's genuinely blowing my mind right now, it would be Willem Mulder, one half of Makez. I met him a few years back when I invited Makez to a residency I had at Sacré in Paris. We clicked immediately as people, had a jam session at a studio, and I was completely blown away by his talent. Everything he does hits me in exactly the right place, and every time he sends me unreleased material, my reaction is always "how did he even come up with this?" It always sounds exactly the way you'd want it to, while still surprising you every sixteen bars. I'd bet anything this guy is going to be at the forefront of music in the years to come.
How do you discover new music these days — record shops, online digging, promos, radio, friends?
A bit of everything, really. I still love digging in record shops when I can, and when the budget allows, but a lot happens online now, mostly through Bandcamp. When I find a track I love, I'll check the label's other releases and the artist's work. I also dig into other people's collections. I'll buy something and then check out who bought it too and dig into their purchases, it often leads to more discoveries.
Can you tell us a bit about the mix? Were there any particular thoughts or themes behind it?
Honestly, there wasn't a specific concept or theme behind it, just music I love and have been digging lately, a blend of old and new. The one thing I knew from the start was that I wanted to open and close with tracks from my latest EP « Dreams », released last month on Noire & Blanche. I think it would be a good vibe for someone commuting :)
What's coming up next for you this year, and what are you most looking forward to over the summer?
I'm currently working on launching my own label, the first releases are already ready, I just need to sort out distribution and a few other things. As for the summer, I'm hoping for plenty of gigs, new encounters, and the chance to travel and play the music I love.