[Interview] We talked about benevolence, wickedness and artistic creation with Perez

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• 27/01/2023
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Two years after “Surex”, here is Perez back with a short EP of four titles where laughs of hyenas burst in a strange smell of vanilla.Nice reflection on strangeness.Encounter.

Are we still?Where does the heart of his own identity nestle?Where are we going ?Do we lose pieces of ourselves on the way?Should we worry about it?What do we do with the strata of emotions and ideas that the works rub shoulders on us, the experiences suffered or chosen?How to manage your wickedness?And that of others?How to think and say what we do not yet know that we can think and say?How to get out of yourself?What to do with your sadness?Do we swim in the absurd?

So many questions that live, in filigree, the work of Julien Perez, since his beginnings with Cramer, first EP released under his simple family name.If his beginnings recalled the Bashung of Play wounds like the melancholy love of Dancefloor by Etienne Daho (who photographed him for the Daho exhibition likes Pop! Presented in 2017 at the Philharmonie de Paris), Perez moved away fromFrench pop tradition to experiment more and thus build a slightly offbeat world, semi-on-one.A world that would be almost ours but not quite, like a reflection of oneself in the mirror in full rise of LSD (excellent story of this experience to be found in what love means of Mathieu Lindon).A self that would no longer be completely.And isn't that there, ultimately, the goal of life (still it should be considered that there is one ...) to get out of yourself, here and there, in order to mutate?

The transformation is what animates Perez.Not radical, rather aerial, dubious, questionable, skeptical, seeking to scratch the surface a little while retaining the format of the classic pop song that each can catch and swallow.With his new EP Sados, Perez offers a good suite in Surex, his latest album published pre-confined, two years ago., intriguing mixture of poetic writing, electro-pop, tutoring of sound and superposition of diapers, without anything pompous, with the desire not to choose a path but rather to see what the arrangement of several wayscould give.

Sados precedes an exhibition on the theme of the wickedness that Julien Perez, under his cap - New - of plastic artists will present at the L'Onde art center in Vélizy in the spring.Encounter avec quelqu’un qui cherche.

Your press kit is accompanied by an interview on your new EP SADOS.Does cultural journalism no longer use anything?

It is a way of providing avenues, of giving information that seems important to me.The interview format seemed lighter than descriptive texts as I did before.I saw that you participated in a program on cultural journalism on France Culture.Indeed, there is only a reduced place given to cultural criticism in the media and I find it deplorable.There is more room given to a video that makes the buzz than to criticize a book or a disc.

Do you read cultural criticism?

I read a lot.A little less today.But I continue to come across criticism that makes me want.I listen to the radio a lot.Even if criticism is no longer the only way to know what is done, it remains important on substantive issues.I also think of Audimat, whose sociology of culture I like.It's essential.

In this famous self-interview, you say: “The four songs of this EP are a kind of substrate, these are the ones that best summarize the questions and the sensations that I had during this period.”What are these questions and sensations?

At the start, I told myself that beyond its dramatic dimension, what we lived could bring to the scene ecological, health, justice questions.Then finally, the more time has passed, the more we stopped applauding the caregivers, the more we started to shoot ourselves in the legs.The subject of the presidential election is national identity ... Nothing has moved.It’s a contrasting feeling.He feels belonging to humanity, we feel that everything is nested at the time of globalization, that we are part of a whole, a collective;And at the same time, the dramatic dimension, even catastrophic, of the situation was not enough to move the lines ...

Would you say that there is a political dimension in your music?

Not head -on.I don't proselytize.On the other hand, I think it is influenced by the context.It is difficult today to be in solipsism, to talk about your personal problems, your ass stories.It appears on tribute for example, with this story of apocalypse in a supermarket.The deleterious political climate of the time infused my words and my imagination.

The dramatic situation could precisely push with withdrawal, solipsism, right?

The fantasy of going to live in the countryside and to close the listening ... These are thoughts that have gone through the minds of many people I suppose, but we realize that our life is made of social relations.We can hardly cut everything and clutch.We are embarked on the same thing and artistic practice seems to me saving for those who make it, and those who receive it.The works of art that affect widen the field of possibilities and often make you want to create.These are beacons that allow us to move to an action coming out of the perimeter of art.

You are never paralyzed by doubt?You never tell yourself that nothing is useful?

Artistic practice has always been present, in the caves, in prisons, under the dictatorships.It is also a form of escape to go and draw resources from the imagination, in the intellect, when the material and life conditions are not good.So no, it is not vain, even if the context can be discouraging on logistical, pragmatic points ... Make music without concert halls, do not get out of disc because there is a shortage of material ... but I do notdo not question the fact of making art.

There is a certain return to Field Recording Currently, mainly sounds, river, rain.Didn't you want to join your EP?

There is field recording on my EP!Via cries of people in a rollercoaster on a tribute, where we also hear supermarket music.There are noises of people who speak at the start of vanilla.I always liked to put it in my songs.These sounds that do not come from the studio give a real effect.I like to compose different dimensions in the same piece. Sur Vanille, la voix est traitée au départ comme sur un morceau de R&B puis on m’entend chanter un peu faux et me mettre à rire.It was a failed grip that I kept, because it gives us out of the smooth to show something raw, the moment of taking, the studio, the off scope.I like this rupture, this fact of breaking the magic of production.

Where do these sounds come from?

I record them on my phone, or I grab them on Freesound, a participative site where lots of people put sounds recorded on Nagra or on iPhone, which are classified by category: Grine door, child in a park, birds ... I'Also walk there to look for arrangement ideas.I go on ropes, I will look for creations and suddenly I find one that will harmonize or create a dissonance and I do it in music so that we don't even capture that heThis is Field Recording.It is a way of making textures alive, strange.

Was all the EP produced at home?

Yes, in my home studio, all alone.Théo, Strip Steve, did not participate in production as in the previous ones, even if it is the first person to whom I had the songs listen to.I felt the need to be in this containment thing, at home, alone.These are four pieces extracted from a big material, of months of experiments.They seemed to me to go together.They formed a dramatic arc that I found cool.

Is it alone is not the danger of scattering?

It is necessary when you are alone.What is great, in a group, is that everyone brings their ideas, which produces permanent conflicts.Now alone, it is difficult to play against yourself;We must therefore set up methods to achieve the same result as in group.If I like a melody, I force myself to make several versions, with different arrangements.I do the same with the texts: I cut them, I make them cut ups.Often I don't like the first texts, which I find too close to myself, my fogs.I will make them gradually foreign to myself by cutting them out to achieve something more dreamlike, to bring out of things that I would not be able to verbalize in an immediate way.It requires scattering ...

In the presentation of your EP, you just explain that strangeness maybe "a salvation".

It’s a way to make music.I do not like arc-bouted identities on themselves, people sure of their opinions, their principles.It is important to be constantly evolving, in transformation, to doubt.It involves feeling foreign to yourself, but in a virtuous sense.

Isn't that scary?

Not in an artistic approach.Afterwards, feeling losing ground ... We all have soft blows, doubts about the meaning of life (laughs).The memory of fear can certainly be used to create, but fear itself paralyzes.My hands are dumb and I don't do anything.It takes serenity to create.Even if materials can be painful or unpleasant memories.I need to have clear ideas.

How do you have them?Do you set up a specific device?An organization ?

I try to have fairly strict schedules, to do classic work days, from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m..Today it frees me less to spend days having the impression of doing only shit because I record, I keep, I come out two years later and I take another look at what I produce.I need to produce constantly to have material.I never waited for it to fall on me, touched by grace.I have always been laborious.

And on the side of the text?Are you leaving a word?Of a general idea?

It often starts with a word.Of its sound.A word can be musical, send back a polysemic meaning, open to be able to build around ... Then I build a narration or I add other words that will play with this first word by echo, by musicality.

Why laughs of hyenas, for example?

I like the idea of the laughing hyena and go in packs.It is a good image of this current culture of lynching.And when I was little, I had illustrated books.I remember a herd of hyenas who followed an injured giraffe and waiting for her to run out to attack.I found it strong.

This EP, Sados, accompanies an exhibition on the theme of wickedness at the L'Onde art center in Vélizy in the spring.

This is the first milestone of a whole that will form an exhibition in April 2022 with Élisa Pône.The exhibition will consist in 20 filmed interviews in which I asked people of all ages to tell me stories of nasty suffered.At the end, I asked them to listen to a piece of music while remaining silent.This will be mounted on reading a story of wickedness, which will produce a gap in attitudes, a strangeness.At that time I will release new songs more explicitly on wickedness.This first EP leads to this theme, but in a more distant way.Vanilla talks about cruelty, hyena of their laughs ... The future songs will give a right of response to the villain.

He has a right of response, the bad guy?

Yes, it's important, we are in a democracy!

What is wickedness today?

Unlike the philosophical notion of "evil" that we find in Hannah Arendt, wickedness has a more childish side, which also refers to a subjective experience.Very few thinkers were interested in wickedness.And then she refers to the characters of superhero films, exuberants, a figure that I like because she transgresses, that she is Bigger Than Life.Brigitte Fontaine is a bit of a nasty of film, like Nick Cave, Sch, Mf Doom.It's always funny, the characters of bad guys.From this moment when you have the fiction contract, you can say lots of stuff, pass transgressive ideas under the carnival side of fiction.

The notion of benevolence currently annoys you?

We are in a society where companies will claim to be benevolence, and at the same time, I have the feeling that there has never been so much wickedness in exchanges, from politics to school.There is not really any space for confrontation, the dialogue of ideas.It has been reduced to punchlines, sensational attacks ... a short time ago to develop conflictual but essential questions to live in common.So we have on the one hand of the Hurluberlus New Age who speak of kindness all the time and on the other, hyper aggressive people who believe that they have legitimate wickedness when it is hatred andDriven violence against vulnerable people or minority groups.We would need virtuous wickedness.

Did you have to think about your own wickedness?

I sometimes regret having been mean to some people.I try to draw conclusions and be someone better.

Is it important to improve?

Yes I think [laughs].It's good not to let go to the sly.Good wickedness, being able to tackle taboo subjects, approach things in a raw way, show a healthy revolt, it's very important.

The tribute clip takes up photos of you child.What sounds, what noises are associated with your childhood?

Kid, I lived in a building which gave the Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux, which often hosts fairgrounds and circuses.I heard sounds like a rumor that penetrated the apartment, a little party music, animals ... a slightly magical and creepy world that came to my ears.In my music, there is a relationship with tales, to the primitive stories that have made us since we are small.

What primitive account do you have your childhood?

I would say learning cruelty, injustice in stories.Mr. Seguin's goat marked me well.

What are your first childhood memories?

Play on its own.I am an only child.Finding ways to make games exciting when I didn't really have playmates.Quite young, I had found something: I recorded my voice on a cassette recorder then I read, and I made dialogues with the recorder.I had shown this to my parents, it had freaked them apart, I think.It seemed to me to be a way to give density, thickness to life.

Would you remember a year?

I no longer see that as a flow.

Do you have a feeling of strangeness when you think about your childhood?

For sure.I came across written texts recently when I had their twenties, new attempts.By rereading them I did not recognize myself.No memory of having written them, for having been in these moods, of having had this style of writing ... a complete foreigner.

Is memory important for you?

Not too much.It’s healthy to make souvenir purges.It's complicated to want to keep everything ... Our brain is not made to process all this info, so we must let the selection take place naturally.

Is it the same in music?

I am not a collector.If a song goes back, it's quite easy with the internet to find it by association of ideas.There are a few very important discs that I have vinyl at hand.But I am not obsessed with everything to have tidy up on hand.

One day, you said to me: "I don't listen to pop music but I do it." It's always like that ?

There are very mainstream stuff that I really like, like Rosalía or some pieces of The Weeknd.But this is not what I will see in concert for example.Now, I try to go towards more surprising things, contemporary music, ambient, flamenco.It is often more inspiring than going to see an indie rock or electronic pop group which I feel like I know the jargon well.

Paradoxically, you keep a song format.

This is what I like.This is the common thread of this project.He has moved a lot from the start but I kept this will.Unlike niche music that is very coded, pop allows you to aggregate around a project full of different influences, a bit like toys.There is a fun side in the pop that I like.Keep evidence, gimmicks, give a spine to which I attach my experiments.

When did you also enter the world of visual arts?

Rather early.The first collaboration dates back to 2005 with Saâdane Afif, who had asked me to put music on words for an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo.I had a lot of friends in Fine Arts.I created the Exotourism group with Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.I like it to be able to think of music other than in this cycle of getting out of the records, making promotion, giving concerts.There are also more musical ideas, others more visual or literary.It is fulfilling to allow yourself to change artistic discipline.

Do you have a precise ambition with Perez?

I want to constantly renew my point, to be daring, inventive on each disc.Evolve my writing practice.Do not rely on a formula that would identify the project.I like that he would put and go and touch creation fields outside pop music.And that little by little we can, when we take a retrospective look at what I have done, see the connections, the trip.I don't know where I will go ... but I would like it to draw a constellation which I am proud of.

Do you have an obsession now?

No, I'm not obsessive.In music, I listen to Mica Levi a lot.I like its transdisciplinary side.She performs, film music, more rock things.She has great freedom.It could almost be a model for me.

An artistic image that struck you?

Recently, this is the exhibition on Derek Jarman at Crédac d'Ivry-sur-Seine.There is this film called Blue.It is a screen on which a blue image is projected but filmed, so we see the stuff of the film.And a voice that is that of his diary tells the violence of his daily life as an AIDS patient, filmmaker and painter becoming blind and dying of AIDS, while leading a ramblings on the word blue in English, which means color,But also sadness.All mounted with lots of music, Brian Eno, Satie, Field Recording.And it all happens on this blue screen that plays on retinal persistence.When you turn away your gaze and then come back on it, you have a feeling of variation, but the image does not move;You produce your own visual hallucinations.It is a hybrid work between an installation, a cinema experience, a radio creation ... it touched me a lot.

Do you need self-confidence to create a work?

I think, yes.I can't be productive when I doubt.Self-confidence does not mean thinking that we are above all.But it refers to the idea of serenity.Feel that we are in the right arrangements to do something, and that it is not in vain.

Interview by Carole Boinet

Perez, Sados (remote star), released on January 14.In concert at the ephemeral point (Paris) on February 15, 2022.

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