[Interview] Chinese Man, posed for this edition of Solidays 2018

Saturday at Solidays 2018, Zé Mateo, Sly and High Ku from Chinese Man offered us a few minutes of their time for a press conference… almost private!

Indeed, there were few journalists present (maybe because we saw them too much and they are regulars of the festival as they will joke about it) and Justfocus had fun by asking a lot of questions to the 3 members of Chinese Man about their projects and their label.

This is not your first time at Solidays. Today the festival has grown a lot. How does it feel to come back?
Chinese Man: We realized that this is the 5th time we come!!We're kind of home. It's cool, we're happy! It's a good date; It has accompanied us from the beginning, to each project. It's a great moment to share and a very big festival for a great cause. We find friends backstage : it always marks an important moment of the summer.

Do you have a better memory to tell us?
Chinese Man: We always have little surprises at Solidays and each time we take a little revenge on small technical galleys. That's fine: everything is fine! The planets have aligned, it's 2018, it's cool!

Does being your own label give you more work to manage all your projects?
Chinese Man: I would say that it was valid at the beginning; Then we surrounded ourselves, we built a team. Now, we have a role that is quite related to the artistic direction, but the whole structure is managed by a lot of great people, some of whom are here. This is the strength of the project: the team that manages the label reflects quite well the spirit of the project that we wanted to set up from the beginning. In fact, people grafted themselves to what we wanted to do.

Everything is homemade at Chinese Man. But how do you divide the choices?
Chinese Man: There is a collegial choice on the decisions we make. Then there are choices on which we are not necessarily involved when it comes to the internal decisions of the label. But as far as artistic choices are concerned, i.e. which new artists we want to work with, it has to be collegial because everyone is involved. We didn't create a catalog with 40 artists because we can't develop it, the team that works on the label couldn't do it. We decide together when we start a new project.

Shikantaza, the name of your latest album means "to sit in nothing". Have you had time to ask yourself lately?
Chinese Man: Yes, that's fine. Last year we did a huge tour for the release of the album and this year we were pretty cool. We did a lot of dates in Europe before coming back to festivals in France, but in general we manage to keep a fairly calm rhythm that remains pleasant for us. The fact that we have our Label offer, that we are our own turner it also allows us to take the time, not to impose rhythms that would make us get tired quite quickly I think.

The last album is a little more spiritual than the others. What is spirituality at Chinese Man?
Chinese Man: Difficult question! The remark on the album is true in any case in the sense that the last few projects we had done were more talkative: there were a lot of MCs, guests. There, we really wanted to immerse ourselves in instrumental music and therefore, by extension, slightly longer pieces that will inspire a certain spirituality. But for us… I don't know if there really is an answer for the group… I believe that each individual has his spiritual research. For me it's football (Sly)! It's not true, but it's the World Cup and I have no idea. Sorry, that's the answer you'll get (others don't want to comment on the subject).

You collaborated on the circus show Speakeasy. How did you end up on this project? Can you tell us about it?
Chinese Man: Actually we had a circus duo before (laughs). 2 years ago, we were approached by artists from a big circus company that was setting up a side project called The Rat Pack. They offered us to participate in the project. We were finalizing our album; It wasn't really the right time to create. But the project was quite beautiful and interested us so we agreed on a working principle. We offered them to pick from our songs, we reissued a little… We didn't make an original creation, it's rather a set of what Chinese offers. We were helped by Supa-Jay, one of the artists of Scratch Bandits Crew, who was able to do the structures, the edits with them. The collaboration was like that and it's great because for us it makes sense too. The music circulates well, we really have our number that we have to work a little more with the elbows … the thing where you block like that… (turns to High Ku). We hope to be able to do circus instead of pressing buttons and scratching. (laughs) What do you think? (to High Ku who nods his head, looking not at all convinced)

https://youtu.be/OVEM62Sy6Xw

Chinese Man: It's a nice collaboration anyway. As we have already seen, they are currently at the Palais des Glaces until September 1st.

Speakeasy Facebook Event

Does it make you want to do other projects of this kind, film music maybe?
Chinese Man: Yeah, we've wanted to do a film score, a soundtrack for a long time ; It hasn't happened yet. It's projects that are a little different and a little long in general, but it's always nice to have your music used in a medium or format that wasn't originally thought for that. If we have the opportunity to do other projects in this spirit, with pleasure, yes! And even to take more time to make a real creation, it would be really nice!

Would the way of proceeding for the creation of film music force you to work differently?
Chinese Man: I think, because there are back and forth between artists. You propose a piece, I imagine that if there are particular desires we have to rework. I think it's a more intense collaboration.Even with an MC where your song is practically finalized and you only do a few small touch-ups, there it's really more back and forth and it must take you in different directions musically necessarily.

For the work that goes on your clips, even if the sound is there long before, how do the images come?
Chinese Man: We have been lucky to work since almost the beginning of the project with a couple of friends, Fred and Annabelle, who are 3D developers. In fact, it happens in a fairly simple way : we decide together on a piece to work on, then they explain their idea to us. We don't understand what they want to do (laughs). They come back a few months or a good time later: they show us and we say it's great ! I'm schematizing a little but it's true that they developed quite independently the visual universe of Chinese Man according to what they wanted to do. Strangely we never needed to go back to it. I have the impression that now it's almost 50% of the project… In any case live it is big data of the project.

For tonight's live, what should we expect?
Chinese Man: No tonight we couldn't take a screen (laughs) Yes, there are a lot of visuals, there are a lot of videos. There are also other videographers with whom have worked like Vince, Yann Marquis… The challenge on a live like this is to make coexist the different musical but also visual universes. For that we have a whole team on site that will mix all these media live so that we are something coherent at the end.

Cool guys, no headache and funny: that's what we remember from this meeting with the Chinese Man

Find the postponement of Chinese Man at Solidays 2018

Photos : Florian Fromentin – https://www.florianfromentin.fr