Hi there ! 🙂 You were born in France, you spent time in Switzerland, England, Holland, what relationship do you have with languages and why did you choose to sing mainly in Italian ?
Hi! Bonjour ! Goedemorgen! Funny enough that you asked it in English being a French speaker, working in a tri-lingual country for a festival named after a Brusseleir slang word… 🙂
So yes, as for loads of people, my relationship to languages is completely “schiev”.
Regarding Italian which I solely use for Radio Hito, lots of reasons and non-reasons led me to that choice, it is a really easy-going language to sing sound-wise, and it is also my mother tong, in the literal sense, a language I have been exposed to without mastering it, which also gives me a lot of freedom and allows me some distance in the way I use it.
Part of your creative process seems to be around improvisation, can you tell us more about this way of creating?
“Improv” is a big word. It is often associated with the idea of not-writing, or automatic-writing, experimenting. In my case, I like to take it for what it says, literally: dealing with contingencies (word and process of the year 2020 I guess :-/). The reason why I believe in contingencies – do we even have the choice nowadays – is that it takes your practice outside where you would have not gone, in the unknown. Taking contingencies into account within your creative process opens your little narcissistic mono-directional usual approach to the feedbacks of your context, environnement, hypothetic audience. Negotiating with improvisation actually requires a great deal of consciousness and openness. It can go to the tiniest object which comes into your field of vision to any kind of overwhelming emotions or a world-wide pandemic.
We asked you to soundtrack a « a walk ». Could you describe the place and the ideal climate for a sunday stroll? Any specific play you’d like us to wander around while listening to your schiev set ? 🙂
As one of the most viewed TeD speaker wisely said one day: “it’s the journey, not the destination”. 🙂
And also, being a great adept of the dérives, it is hard for me not to let you simply drift along my music. I explored quite a bit of Brussels recently, during my last experience for Kraak Spring Brakers project last June, under the great guidance of my label boss and greatest city guide TG Gondard and with the great cooperation of Acte Bonté. Maybe you will find some inspiration down there.
Yet, I will be super happy to welcome you for a comforting after-walk beverage wherever I will be that Sunday.