colleen

(written on 1st August 2022)

When I was a child, there was a lamp clamped to my desk, one of those heavy articulated lamps with a spring on the side. This spring was the first thing I tried to make sound with, running my nail along it. I thought about this today, as I am about to finally embark on recording my 8th album. The older I get, the more exhausted I am by life’s complications (I know, it doesn’t sound optimistic, and it isn’t), and the more exhausted I am, the more I want my music to be the ultimate refuge against this, a place and moment where complexity is only in the music itself. Closely intertwined with this desire is a growing and almost gut-like instinct to simplify my means of production, which I feel is actually the only way I can tap into complexity in contents and form.

I started working on this album exactly one year ago, and I rapidly saw that it would be a kind of octopus-like creature. At the beginning several approaches competed for my attention: a couple of songs with singing that felt related to my last album The Tunnel and the Clearing in both sound and construction; sketches with the Elka Drummer One (I’ve been wanting to make a rhythm-focused album since 2018…); a renewed interest in the idea of a “suite” of compositions, possibly influenced by reading a massive history of Western music, and… SYNTHESIS, on the @moogsynthesizers Grandmother, overtaking my creative life in a way I hadn’t expected. What you nurture grows, and little by little the suite-like approach and the idea of synthesis variations overtook the other aspects, to the point where I feel some radical pruning of the other aspects is almost bound to happen.

I have finally managed to put together a list of the songs I am going to record – everything live, no edits. It looks pretty insane on paper, but I will probably fuse some of those variations, leading to fewer tracks. Synthesis is a lot of fun, and whenever something is really fun, you run the risk of not really hearing the music behind your fun, so to help with critical hearing, I have made a “synthesis table” to keep objective track of what I do.
Can’t wait for it to be in your ears ❤

… OR: I AM GLAD HUMAN BEINGS ARE CAPABLE OF MAKING THESE THINGS SO THAT I CAN USE THEM.
I have said this a few times already: I am by no means a nerd, I have no background in anything remotely resembling the set of skills needed to build a synthesizer, but I do believe in educating myself and in the power of just marvelling at beautiful, truly well-made things. I will always be in awe of the fact that it’s *people* who have thought out this wonderfully complex and novel way of making sound, and found the means to turn their ideas into a reality, which we lay people can subsequently use.

I loved visiting the Moog factory when I performed at the Moog Soundlab back in November 2017 (cf my A Flame Variations EP recorded over there, to mark the end of the production of Moogerfoogers), and some of that magic was recaptured last week when I visited Mas Acoustics, Moog’s distributor and repair partner in Spain, on the occasion of my Grandmother needing a revision for scratchy pots. Mas Acoustics happen to be located in a small town north of Barcelona, so this was just perfect, and I asked Juan Berlanga, in charge of repairing units, if he could leave my unit open: not only did we need to doublecheck the new pots worked fine, I also wanted to see if perhaps we could do something to the reverb tank as my way of playing can be quite percussive and I sometimes felt I was getting a bit too much spring sound (the tank was smaller than I thought, and in the end, we decided against doing anything to cushion it, for fear of killing a sound that works so well).

Even though my understanding of these boards is extremely partial, I’m happy I can recognize the basic parts, and I figured that those of you who actually understand this stuff would enjoy looking at the innards of this amazing synth, so here goes…

Tantas gracias a todo el equipo de @masacoustics, Juan Berlanga en particular por la reparación y el trato inmejorable, y Jana Moreno por las fotos 1-6! Also massive thanks to @moogsynthesizers for their amazing gear and support, Jason Daniello @orgatroid in particular and Jack Burton.

Resigning from the job I trained for – English teacher – is perhaps the most important decision I’ve made in my entire life. I’ve hesitated to write this post, as I don’t want it to come across as “Look at me, I’m so smart/brave/whatever”, nor as an incentive to quit a day job to dedicate oneself to a supposedly more “noble”/cooler career. No. But I thought I would share a few thoughts on one of my favorite topics in life, mental health, and how this relates to work.

I resigned at the age of 31, in 2007, after a 1-year sabbatical during which I went in complete overdrive: my first Japan tour, making my 3rd album Les Ondes Silencieuses (my most challenging album in terms of recording – I couldn’t have done it without the help and expertise of my then mastering engineer Emiliano Flores), recording a dance score for choreographer Perrine Valli, and of course playing live (which I did way more back then).

Theoretically the sabbatical could have been renewed for a full total of 6 years, but this renewal was refused. I appealed. It was refused again. I resigned. I felt sure that I could handle being a musician full-time, and it was clear to me that it would be criminal not to live that incredible adventure.

Fast forward to 2008 and massive chronic stress had overtaken my life, in the form of a constant influx of emails I could never get on top of, constant struggle to get accounting and get paid by my label, constant red tape hassle and fear due to France being a country not at all suited to receiving multiple types of income from multiple countries, plus way too much travelling and its associated physical stressors… Add to that the fact that my 3rd album felt like the end of a musical journey, and there I was… A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN WITH A MASSIVE CREATIVE BLOCK, ON THE VERGE OF BURNOUT.

the lycée where I taught, looking gloomy, as it did… 3 hours of public transport, 3 different means of transport, 4 days a week. As far as I remember I was the only teacher coming by bus *with the pupils* , who clearly thought “Who is this loser without a car? “

There was a 6 year gap between my 3rd and 4th albums (2007-2013), and I wrote at length about this creative block and how I slowly recovered from it in a double post on my website in 2011, “A long account of why I’ve been silent” here and here.

This was pre-social media, and I got so many emails from people who said I was articulating exactly what they felt as creative freelancers.

Social media has now opened up a space for these topics, though only to a certain extent. Certainly financial problems between artists and labels seem to remain super taboo, mostly out of fear I think, and not just the fear of rubbing specific industry people the wrong way: it’s also the fear of coming across as a whiny artist – and perhaps of even mentioning finances at all?… And no, getting legal help, even if you are willing to pay, is not easy. I guess you could liken it to being bullied at work: is it illegal to bully someone at work? It is. Does it happen? It does. Is it easy to stop? No. Usually what happens is that the bullied person goes away, not the bully. Same with unethical labels: artists move on to other labels, in the hope of greener pastures.

I won’t get into the details of the many things that happened between 2011 and now, but finally, at 46, I’ve got a handle on my chronic stress problem: I do get stressed, but only occasionally and at normal levels. This hasn’t come about miraculously, and I would say is down to 1) working with a label that values me and treats me accordingly, Thrill Jockey 2) finally getting out of the contract with the previous label 3) having a more stable administrative situation 4) being *even* more drastic about what I take on 5) going to therapy.

Interestingly, I see that a lot of these factors could only come through time: I actually had to GET OLDER for a lot of this stuff to happen. Which is a good way to end this post, right? It CAN get better

Official reply to my resignation letter, asking me to confirm my decision in a super-patronizing and paternalistic tone… just in case I’m super dumb and accidentally resigned, y’know…

20 YEARS OF COLLEEN: Everyone Alive Wants Answers is 19 years old today.
This year I’m celebrating (well, kind of 😂) 20 years of making music as Colleen and I was going to write a post for each one of my albums on their respective anniversary dates, which happen to be almost systematically in the spring, but a big health scare got in the way and I had to step away from social media for a bit.
So am starting now with my first album, released 19 years ago today, the one that literally changed my life. I worked on it throughout 2002, my first year of teaching English full time in a lycée in the Parisian suburb of Poissy. I had no clue this was the start of something real and different from what I had anticipated for myself in my life. Sent it to various labels, only one of which replied positively, The Leaf Label, which subsequently released my second and third albums and my music box EP.

It is very unfortunate that my relationship with the label was damaged beyond repair through unethical behaviour in terms of accounting and payment, because I do think the label did a great job of distributing and promoting my music internationally, which in turn enabled me to tour almost worldwide.
The record was based on samples taken from my own collection of records or from the CDs I borrowed like a maniac from the Paris médiathèques, with the exception of “A swimming pool down the railway track” which features a 1994/5 recording of the Bontempi organ I got as a kid. Everything sampled in Soundforge (pre-Burial style haha) and assembled in Acid (which I was still using until last month!) on a massive PC I’d initially bought to write my master’s thesis. In the 17m2 studio flat in which I lived in Paris. The opening title track would definitely be in my 5 favorite Colleen songs if I had to choose.
Some black and white vinyl copies are still available from the Thrill Jockey shop (copies shipping from the US too in a few days).

The Leaf Label last represses

So happy to be back in Madrid on 28 August as part of the Terraza Magnética series! It’ll only be my 4th show in Madrid, and amazingly enough it’s the 3rd time I’m playing La Casa Encendida] : I first played there on 10 March 2006 right between The Golden Morning Breaks and Les Ondes Silencieuses, and this photo is from playing Captain of None on the terrace on 14 August 2016: it captures really well the incredible light that started falling as the show progressed, and I still remember the breeze that mercifully started too and the swifts flying past us… I’m so excited to come back with a 3rd setup to play The Tunnel and the Clearing, and – time should allow for that – a couple of new songs from the forthcoming album!

Gracias de corazón a Andrés Noarbe de Rotor Discos, La Casa Encendida y Mario Andrei por la foto!

Talking of which… I have decided to take a bit more time for LP8, partly because my health hasn’t been optimal in the past few months and therefore I haven’t been as efficient as I would have wanted to, but mainly because this album just wants to be long and complex: at a certain point, my albums always take a volition of their own, and I feel like I’m “responding” to what the album needs to be, as opposed to consciously steering it in a certain direction. To do justice to the several directions the music is taking (a very “composed” style, a very experimental synthesis side, a more pop-oriented approach with singing, and a more rhythmical side with the Elka), to work out a coherent tracklisting, and to make sure mastering goes smoothly (ie no “I need to listen to a 70-minute album in as many places as possible in 3 days” rush), I have decided it just makes sense to take my time in order to savour the process as much as possible, and avoid stress.

I’ll also admit that in a way it’s almost like I don’t want to finish it, because I’m enjoying the open-endedness of it all so much Maybe the perspective of getting a new synth for LP9 will be my main motivator for finishing LP8