colleen

I’ll go on in French as this is mostly for those of you who speak French.

Cette semaine j’ai eu le plaisir de m’entretenir longuement avec Richard Robert, qui a longtemps travaillé aux Inrockuptibles (où parurent deux articles sur ma musique signés de sa main) et qui a créé une revue musicale en ligne, l’Oreille absolue, dont le propos est de « redonner la parole aux musiciens » : on y trouve donc  de nombreux entretiens, tous très approfondis, avec des musiciens de tous horizons, et le site forme au final une impressionnante « base de données » d’entretiens, un must pour les amoureux de la musique, à mon avis…  Dans cet entretien-fleuve je reviens sur mon expérience de ces quelques dernières années,  c’est mon premier entretien depuis bien longtemps et je suis ravie qu’il ait eu lieu hors du terrain de la « promotion » d’un nouveau disque, et qu’il soit sur des choses plus permanentes et essentielles…

l’article est ici

STOPPING THE WHEEL

Of course, I knew that the only master on board was myself and that if I thought this was too much, I should just slow down, or even stop – which I eventually did, but it took me time: it’s not easy to say no to great offers, so you often just keep doing things because it seems a shame to turn them down. In a way, I guess the self-managed musician is very much like the small entrepreneur or craftsman, who puts in crazy hours not necessarily out of financial necessity or solely out of passion, but because that’s the very dynamic generated by being independent : if you’re successful at what you do, the demand gets stronger and stronger, and while a small entrepreneur can hire more people to help him, there is no substitute for me actually being on a stage – even if I get a roadie or some other person to help me, at the end of the day I either do the gig or I don’t, there is no real middle way. « Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been meaning to write this text for a very long time, but always delayed it because I thought that nothing would beat a new record as a way of saying “hello again”. But it turns out that the new album I’m working on is having a prolonged gestation and yet, I did feel like getting in touch again, so here I am…

I don’t really know where to start as I feel there is so much to say. Ideally I would have liked to keep this short, and I could have, by merely saying that shortly after my last album I lost the desire to make music: I would have said the essential – or perhaps not. It takes some subtle evolution to turn somebody’s passion into something they actually don’t want (or feel unable) to do anymore, and I think the whole point of me writing this is to tell you about what went on for things to turn out that way (and may I hasten to add: and back again to me wanting and being able to make music again!). It’s happened to so many artists, and yet I feel it’s a subject that’s rarely talked about – possibly because it’s not a pleasant one, and even feels a little shameful? « Read the rest of this entry »