KOUDLAM ON PULSATION

By Crash redaction

KOUDLAM IS BACK. BORN GWENAEL NAVARRO, THE MUSICIAN IS CURRENTLY RELEASING HIS THIRD ALBUM, CALLED “BENIDORM DREAM”, AN ADEPT MIX OF GENRES THAT BLEND TO FORM AN IRRESISTIBLE ELECTRONIC VORTEX. ONE TRACK OFF THE NEW ALBUM WAS NOTABLY FEATURED AT THE LATEST CHANEL HAUTE COUTURE SHOW.

Koudlam is a myth. A phantom-like character, usually clad in white with black sunglasses. After a first self-produced album entitled “Nowhere” (2006), he joined the young label Pan European Recording, releasing “Goodbye” in 2009 to immense acclaim from critics and electronic music cognoscenti. His single “See You All” enchanted the ears of the fashion elite, with the violin segment becoming the hymn of a L’Oréal commercial. Back then, Koudlam also collaborated on installations for Cyprien Gaillard, while the artist worked on the musician’s performances and concerts and provided images for “Goodbye”. Today, the post-apocalyptic dandy is once again marching his unique style through the ruins of pop and the vulgarity of our time with his signature elegance and nonchalance, miles ahead of manufactured products, boom-and-bust Parisian fads and fly-by-night hipsters. And here he is to carry us away on his new fantasy, “Benidorm Dream”…

Where did the name “Koudlam” come from?

From my teenage years. It doesn’t really represent me anymore, but it helps me remember the meaning of what I do, that my music is born from a primal desire to go to war. I like that it takes some effort to realize what it means in French slang, so at first it just sounds kind of abstract, a bit like some Hindu name. It’s open to interpretation…

Is music the first thing you ever wanted to do?

I wanted to do something like what I’m doing now. From fairly early on I had a good number of tracks that I can still adapt today from time to time. But then and now, I’ve
always wanted to do lots of other things, too: painting, poetry, stamp collecting, etc. A lot of things are decided in adolescence. But I don’t want to say you can’t wake up one day at 45 and become a symphony conductor just like that. It has happened… Right now I’ve also got plansin ornithology, and I think a sabbatical as an amateur volcanologist would be classy. But I can’t imagine ever quitting music… It’s just too enjoyable.

How did music first appear in your life?

I quickly saw that it was the quickest way for me to get the most beautiful women and live a cool life. And I like to sing, too. Unlike anything else in the world, making music is the only thing that can give me that thrill that no other chemical substance or human product ever can, except writing poetry perhaps. When I make what I think is a hit song according to my own criteria, I experience a kind of medieval ecstasy – without the rolled-back eyes and spasms.

What did you listen to as an adolescent?

Adolescence is a long time. There are different periods, but the Doors, David Bowie and Nirvana were huge obsessions of mine. Then came American hardcore (music from skate tapes like Black Flag, Dead Kennedys). I was also a big fan of Aphex Twin, Wu Tang Clan and Spiral Tribe.

You like to blend genres in your music. What determines your choices?

I really have thousands of influences in terms of music. There’s great stuff from every style. I listen to “nerdy” stuff like Balavoine, the soundtracks from “Ulysses 31”, “DOOM”, “The Big Blue” or “Knights of the Zodiac”, and even Bach, the Beatles, new age relaxation music, the newest Daft Punk or Grant Lee Buffalo. I think we’re obviously influenced by all our predecessors and anything that might have an impact on our belief, our concept, which in my case is actually that I don’t follow any particular method or plan. I just want to make the kind of music I like to listen to. Something that creates new life and works miracles!

Image is important in your world. How do you approach your image?

Music, art, birds, it’s all the same thing. In music just like in ornithology, you can’t fool the world. Visual art is more intellectual, music is instinct. I have a visual approach to my music, but if I really like one artist’s work and I think we could do something great and interesting by joining forces, then I just try to meet them.

Your new album is named after a city. How did you discover Benidorm? Why did you decide to write music there and name your album after it?

I wanted it as my album name before I ever set foot in the town, simply because I liked the sound of the name, beyond anything else the city might symbolize. It made me think of a sort of enormous and obese hero, named “Benidorm” or “Fat Benny”, some giant, frightening and laughing Buddha with a stomach full of gold and who would have a city of ruins as a throne. So then I went there and decided to live there for a while, to get inspiration and see what it would be like to live in what every bobo sees as the holy of holies in terms of nightmarish beach towns. But it’s so out of proportion that even ugliness becomes fascinating there. Even better, there’s a tragic and comic side to everything, something apocalyptic that is definitely worth the experience. Seen from the water, after coming up the nearly untouched coastline, the city looks like a giant fortress, a monster washed up on the beach, at the foot of a mountain. I rented an apartment high up in a gigantic tower: I was king. Most of the time I stayed locked up at home. But at night I observed the strange life of this city and the incredible characters you find there: dwarf shows, old ladies performing unbelievable sex shows, Michael Jackson impersonators, amateur painters. I met all sorts of these people, they became my friends, they’re really adorable and endearing people… and deeply deranged, of course. But who isn’t?

Your last album was influenced by South America, this one by Spain. Is Europe interesting for you? What aspects?

Benidorm is in Spain, but honestly I felt like I was in England or Holland a lot of the time. In winter it’s really like Europe’s retirement home, because the weather is always nice. Older people aren’t as stupid as we are. To be honest I preferred Spain how it was, in the time of pesetas and tacky key chains (OK, that aspect is still there, the Chinese have picked up the slack). I miss the time of porous borders and weak currencies.

Your new single “Negative Creep” is named after a Nirvana song. Do you feel any special connection, maybe a secret affinity, with the band and the attitude developed by Kurt Cobain?

I think Nirvana is an important part of my DNA, like the musical definition of my melancholic side. I pretend to believe in something, but I know deep down it’s all a sham.

Your song “Landsc Apes” has a sort of “trap music” sound, a style that’s been popular in American rap lately. Is this a genre you feel close to?

Pretty much, yes. You can say that US rap (and by extension, “trap” and the rest) sets the pace for dance music, which in turn influences pop and new music. So that’s the genre that seems to swallow up and spit out new stuff at the speed of light. It seems like it’s becoming a universal genre or a sort of intelligent music that mixes a bit of everything. It should be my enemy, but I feel like I’m kind of on the cutting edge of it all, it’s strange. But “Landsc Apes” is mostly a stoner rock song that suddenly morphs into a “trap” thing in the middle, and then goes back to stoner rock. It’s about the transformation.

On the topic of style, what is your relationship to style and fashion? You have a look you might call “postapocalyptic dandy”. Is it a statement, a kind of declaration to go along with your music?

I will gladly accept that description but I don’t have any special relation to fashion. Fashion is mostly a foreign land for me.

Did you attend or see the latest Chanel show (fall-winter 2014 haute couture) where “Landsc Apes” was featured? Do you know the guy who does the soundtracks, Michel Gaubert?

No, I wasn’t there, but I found out about it later. I met Michel Gaubert once a while ago. He is really a nice guy.

How do you think of your albums? Is there a general concept? Or do you make one song after the next based on how you’re feeling?

A lot of times I’m thinking about larger concepts, ideas that are likely to spark a bunch of other ideas in a series, like the idea of doing an album based on a city. But musically that doesn’t mean much for me. It’s just a mental framework, somewhere to start from. So the real idea on this album was that I wanted each song to contain a genuinely good idea of its own. I wanted each track to be an idea. For example, the idea might be a unique way to use an instrument like the harpsichord, or a song born out of a desire to use a particular instrument. There are a lot of songs on “Benidorm Dream” that are supposed to produce a sort of futuristic variety show that could one day be played live in restaurants and hotels in Africa and Asia. There’s also the idea of extracting the nobility of the giant beach carnival that is Benidorm and using it as my raw material. “See Benidorm and Die”. That’s a cool title, I should have used it. Too late.