Sebastien Tellier doesn’t really care if you dance at his shows.
The French troubadour is more like a modern-day Barry White, aiming to make sweet digital music to put couples in the mood.
“The best gift from an audience was in New York because a couple had sex during the show,” Tellier said from his record company’s office in Paris. “Right there standing on the floor. It was beautiful. From the stage I try to excite the audience. I want to see some guys and girls and some kisses.”
Tellier, who plays the Paradise on Sunday, leaves the club-shaking anthems to DJs and pop stars. On his latest release, “Sexuality,” he creates a sultry symphony with a bank of keyboards and laptops.
“I use sexuality. It’s not a men’s vision. It’s a very sweet vision of sex, a very tender vision of sexuality,” he said, describing his musical style. “It’s a very tasty and comfortable sound. Through my music, I try to search inside the fruit to look at what is inside the fruit. In French, it’s pulp. We try to reach the pulp.”
The 34-year-old maestro of the MacBook has mostly flown under the radar in the United States. But in his homeland, he’s an eccentric star as well known for his appearances in the gossip pages and on TV variety shows as for his music.
“When I go in the taxi, the driver (sometimes) recognizes me, but he doesn’t know my music,” he said. “Outside France, that’s the opposite. Some people know my songs, but if they meet me in the street, they don’t know me.”
Along with fellow Frenchmen and labelmates Air, he’s part of his country’s electronic music renaissance, although he operates on a far more atmospheric level than such harder Gallic dance acts as Justice, Daft Punk and Busy P.
“There is poetry inside my music. It’s kind of conceptual music,” he explained. “I make music to create some good sensation and some good emotion inside the audience. But I don’t care about dancing and I don’t care about the nightclub.”
His racy video for the catchy electro-soul number “Kilometer” features dozens of scantily clad supermodels all vying for his attention. But while he promotes sexual expression, he’s no real-life Austin Powers. Au contraire.
“When you play music all around the world, it’s really easy to have just a night of sex,” he said. “So the first is good, the second one is good, but after that it becomes very sad. Night after night of one girl after one girl, I don’t know why, but that creates a bad spirit and I become depressed. I really need love and a relationship to be happy.”
Sebastien Tellier, at the Paradise, Sunday night. Tickets: $14; 617-562-8800.
