The Jet Set Junta

Parisaren Guillaume Belhomme har släppt skivor under pseudonymen Gypsophile i nästan tio år nu. Även om jag ibland har svårt att skilja hans låtar från varandra - ganska traditionella, medelst nylonsträngad gitarr och mjuk röst sparsamt arrangerade popchansoner - återkommer jag ofta till hans skivor när jag skall lyssna på musik. Det finns någonting icke krävande, ett lugn, där som jag verkar eftersöka. Det vore dock orättvist av mig att beskriva Gypsophiles musik som händelsefattig eller statisk. På färden har han bland annat lämnat bakom sig engelskspråkig pop som vädrats av en mild bossabris och illustra poplekar tillsamans med gruppen Shop (på det underbara albumet “Gypsophile vs Shop”) för att hamna i ett mörkare stämningslandskap influerat av folk och jazz på det senaste albumet “Les profils des dômes”, som släpptes i april i år.

* How would you compare “Les profils des dômes” to your earlier work?

Les profils des dômes are exactly the thing we wanted to record, last year. This is a real work, well thought out talking about the all conception of the record and the form of the songs, and, at the same time, leaving a great place to improvisation and unsound moments. This confrontation has never been before on Gypsophile records.
Talking about styles, the first records were more under influences : pop I used to listen then, bossa nova and old french singers. Apart in Alep or Unaneelmi tryed to mix all those things, hoping to get something original. The actual musical form we defend began to be on the album called De loin, les choses, we recorded for Radio Khartoum. Besides, this is the first record I asked Colin Barbier and Marine Livernette to record with me, two of the regular members of Gypsophile as a band. Darker lyrics, denuded arrangements, a particular work on the sound and the voice.
The fact that, this time, we produced this album on our own label, Lenka lente, helped us to choose the way to present the songs. Here you won’t listen to one song after the other, like we used to do before , or like we were asked to do for commercial interests (it has been the case for the precedent album Eloquence des fatigués).
And to conclude, I think Les profils des dômes is not the fruit of direct influences, but is, I hope, the product of several researchs and ways to do, as De loin, les choses was the first step of this desire.
Chaotic journey that makes me see, sometimes, records of Gypsophile sold under “bossa nova”, “french rock” or “chanson française” in the same record shop. Maybe Les profils des dômes be filed under “new music” or “chanson”, even if I dream of a “chanson free” file especially dedicated to Gypsophile.

* I’m not good at French, to say the least, but in your lyrics I can sense a fascination of yours for geography, for names of places and things like that. Could you tell me something about this? Is escapism important in pop music?

You’re right. Travels and places are important in Gypsophile’s lyrics. Won’t be able to tell you why, as I write the most of the time under something near of the automatic process. I just can answer you that travels are important for me, and this would be the obvious explanation. Then, it changes too, regarding all songs about personal affairs and love stories related thanks to 20 sentences. Building sceneries and just suggesting story pieces seems to be my way of writing.
To answer the question if escapism is important in pop music, I don’t think so. The important thing for pop music is the escapism of bad bands doing it.

* Is it important for you to experiment?

Mary Shelley used to tell : “Experimentation is life” (She never did, but a citation can help when you want people to believe you faster). With time, to experiment in music became essential, just for fun. During concerts, some people find pleasure to play songs always exactly as the song has been written. For us, it became imperative to play a song and re-work it (as jazzmen are doing with standards, in a way). Sometimes it will be thanks to improvisation, sometimes by changing tempo or the color of the song (it finishes the most of the time by a noisy / free version of a quiet and calm song).
To experiment for a record is a little bit different. On Les profils des dômes, I decided to oppose “classic pop songs” and instrumental impovisations, not always melodic, of course. I think the power of this kind of instrumental on a classic pop song following it is fantastic. A melodic song becomes clearer next to an un-melodic one, and the improvised parts become more disturbing then. Nowadays, according to me, an album is not disturbing at all if it only presents un-melodic pieces. This is the story of free jazz and post free jazz : the second style made more noise than the first, but was a hundred times more conformist.
On a second hand, Les profils des dômes presents something like deconstructed songs. The one called L’accord de Widor is only a small part of the entire and original one (that is about 9 minutes long , played from the beginning to the end). Here, we decided to keep a few lines of the song, a few notes, and drowned it under improvised parts of guitar and saxophone. First, on the sleeve of the CD, I wanted to note (extrait - extract) behind the name of the song. I didn’t do it because this Accord de Widor became, confronted with this small experiment, a new song.
Then, I’m certainly not a figure of the hardest experimentations in music. Telling that a folk song + an un-melodic song are more disturbing than anything is the result of my point of view about music. I am careful about experimenting at all costs and the part of snobbery and sectarianism it can drain.

* Would you say that there is something uniquely “french” about your music?

Yes, I am (French). Of course, there are words, and something of the french classic singers I’m listening to for years, like Brassens, Serge Reggiani or Barbara that can be found in my songs. But I think this was more the fact on earlier works (I’m thinking of the 6 songs of Songs of a thousand nights for Radio Khartoum, even if there is, here, a bossa touch). Brassens let me find the way to play guitar using a lot the two biggest strings. This is a french habit I can’t lose, I suppose.
Next to this particularism, lots of people detect atmospheres of central Europe in Gypsophile songs. Those things I’m not working on, except when I’m writing a song on african lakes…

* Is there any contemporary french artists that you feel related to?

I would say no. I hate all the things done by french singers or bands I know or can listen to. There is an exception for Dominique A, even if I haven’t listen his last records. To feel related to him, not exactly, but he’s the one who is following an original way to write and play. I really don’t know how can be felt the actual french music scene in Sweden, but it refers a lot to the french political : polished, limp, music under security mesures (it can be, believe me). All this played under smiles and thoughts of being witty. Is it different elsewhere in the world, was it different before or will it be a day ? As a joke, for the precedent album, I said in an interview that french listeners have to act for us from a sense of duty. We’re still waiting.

* What are your favourite albums from the 00’s up until now?

From 2000’s up until now ? Then, I would say : Mal Waldron’ s One more time, Joseph Suchy’s Calabi Yau, Jim O’Rourke’s Insignificance, Mark Hollis’ album, Rafael Toral’s Violence of discovery and calm of acceptance, Chicago underground trio’s Possible cube, the compilation of Ekkehard Ehlers Plays. Then, a french duo called Cheval de frise has released an album called Frèsques sur les parois secrètes du crâne. If the result is not always fantastic, the form and choices they defend is quite original. But this is not all the things I could have like. I must have missed a lot of albums I could have appreciated.

* What do you like?

I like a lot reading book of “my” french 19th century and beginning 20th authors, Czechs 20th authors, and so on. Dreaming about the day I will be able to plan my travel to Ethiopy and Soudan. Listening to free jazz during my wife is giving his bath to our 3 years old son. Going to concert of a band I like and coming back thinking they’re not so good as that… Listening to musical projects sent by bands submitting their work to Lenka lente.

* What do you dislike?

So much things. I would tell : of course ! If I let you know, you’ll think I’m deep in my tennage crisis. I’m too old now to tell people thousand things I dislike.

* My favourite Gypsophile records are, besides the new one, the ones released by Radio Khartoum (especially the one with Shop). If you compare them to each other, what would your conclusion be?

Gypsophile versus Shop is quite different than De loin, les choses and Les profils des dômes. It results of a collaboration with the band Shop, when we decided to record 5 songs of Shop and 5 songs of Gypsophile together. The record has been recorded during 4 nights, and is a mix between french chanson, bossa nova and electronic. We had a lot of fun recording the all thing, but I do not think this is one of Gypsophile best work. I prefer De loin, les choses, that is, as I told it before, the point of beginning of the music we’re playing these days.

Gypsophile versus Shop is quite a pop experiment in Gypsophile’s discography. I think we’ve lost a lot of this pop caracteristic in our music now. De loin, les choses was the first album on wich I sang in french, and this changed a lot the all result of the recordings to come after. Furthermore, since De loin, les choses, we learnt, Marine Livernette, Colin Barbier, Olivier Blot and I, to work together as a real band. Each one knows his / her place in the band, and, in the meanwhile, what the band seems to be searching. It made possible to record an album like Les profils des dômes.
We all learnt from each other, and agree on the final work to present. Once again, a journey to live to get an artistic agreement.

* Do you consider what you accomplish under the name Gypsophile to be art? Is it
important for you to have this kind of ambition?

Well, this is a kind of question I never ask myself. But if I have to do it here, I will have to answer, first, to : What does mean “art” nowadays ? Really difficult question. Art is so much thing and aren’t so much others. Thing I’m sure is that “artist” is a word I never use when I have to talk about myself. Of course, so many people making nothing else but bullshit are telling this is Art, it makes finding an answer to the question more difficult.

Then there are magistral master pieces, in all artistic domains, and I could say that, yes, I would be really proud to have a sit, thanks to my songs, next to the painter Odilon Redon, Eric Dolphy, or Apollinaire… Sure, doing art can’t go without a self esteem every great artist must have coupled with doubts about their own works. But we always have to go before the judges, and their aptness is not always evident.

Mattias Holmberg