Small talk with C. Coiffure

memòri : Let’s start with a trip down memòri lane: what is your earliest memory of falling in love with electronic music?

C. Coiffure : I remember having a taste for late 2000s French Touch like Ed Banger Records, this was very trendy in high school so that was my first contact with something I genuinely liked even if there was a social bias but this was a good introduction to my early taste for both house and disco stuff. A bit later I got more into the electronic music world and one of my first loves was 2010s UK garage-y stuff like Julio Bashmore, Disclosure, early Hessle Audio, Mosca, etc etc. I was totally into this sound. And shortly after I discovered some folks from the New-York house scene like Anthony Naples, Huerco S, Mister Saturday Night etc and became obsessed with this sound also. I think it was thanks to Legowelt’s RA mix. I really rinsed it at the time, it was very formative for me.

memòri : You recently shifted from Christian Coiffure to C. Coiffure. Does a name change like that signal something deeper, a new direction, a new relationship to the work, or is it more of a cosmetic move?

C. Coiffure : It’s the name I used for my album Freefloat, at the time I was thinking of using it for non-club material, on which I didn’t spend much time after its release. Even if I like the way it looks, now it feels more like a small change to feel fresh again, like getting a new hairstyle (no pun intended). I do feel there is also a change in my music interests and sounds at the moment but my sound regularly changed over the years and since the beginning of this project I didn’t want to be pinned on a specific genre or style. I believe that my universe now is made of all the things I’ve been into even if I may not be into certain kinds of sound anymore. That’s also why I never wanted to split my music moods into aliases, this is all part of me and my identity so I don’t mind exploring small variations of my name.

memòri : Which track in your discography are you most proud of, and what makes it stand out for you?

C. Coiffure : I can’t really choose one, the ones I prefer recall a particular time & space of my journey. Some are the results of different techniques I tried and the result made me proud and others are pieces I had nice feedback about or that some people enjoyed playing. I could say that I’m proud of the tracks that gave me happy moments and now give me sweet memories.

memòri : Your track "Meet Her Stage 2" became something of a global club anthem. Did that surprise you, and what do you think people were actually hearing in that track that connected so broadly?

C. Coiffure : Yes it was quite a surprise! I mean I knew the track was dancefloor friendly but I didn’t expect to have feedback from friends and people hearing it here and there. I actually have to listen to it again as I write this because I have a slightly different version in my live set and this is the one I’ve been listening to some times over the past months. About what people were actually hearing, I have no idea. It’s hard to get into other people’s heads and it’s even harder to know what will make people resonate with a track at a broad scale and how to produce such a track. In this case maybe it’s the intensity increasing during the whole track, maybe it’s the gritty bouncy bassline unleashing nasty bassface or maybe it’s its playfulness, the fact that it could work with a wide range of contemporary club music. Readers, feel free to tell me !

memòri : How would you describe the Christian Coiffure way of DJing ?

C. Coiffure : Analyzing my own style to answer this has been quite challenging. I think I can say that I like building tension. I like when things go euphoric, I like when things go trippy and I like when things go a bit weird but I also like warm and melancholic vibes. It often helps me with my selection process to start from these moods and then drift from one another according to the slot and venue I play. Then the thing I try to achieve is connect tracks I like and feel like playing to bring people into my world. However sometimes it’s tricky when playing a 1h30, 2h set and in the end I find myself unable to take a lot of risks, especially if it’s a venue and an audience I don’t know.
Also I like to spend some time finding good combos on rekordbox, trying to find the best suite to a track I enjoy and finding the good timing to play the transition where I’ll usually put a visual cue to help me during the set. This is usually the way I dig into my own collection.

memòri : And producing?

C. Coiffure : The DJing one was hard on its own lol. I honestly don’t know what could be my way of producing. Usually it starts from a jam, a recording or calling for random features or preset scrolling on a VST. I barely start tracks with a precise direction in mind. Once I think something is worth going on then I just try to make it lively and sound good. I realize now that for every music genre/scene that I loved, a part of my obsession for them was to find out how it was made.

memòri : You've said you want a more distinctive sonic identity and less dependence on your references. How close are you to that, and what does "distinctiveness" actually mean to you?

C. Coiffure : It shifts according to the days I feel more or less confident in my sound. I’ve always thought about myself that I didn’t have a proper distinctive sound compared to some of my peers because I felt I was intentionally trying to fit in between spaces. Like I had to distinguish myself by making my way into things I liked but not too close to my peers in a forever shifting scene. I feel like I’m still in the quest for sounds that I would like and get inspired by. This is where my producer and DJ mindsets cross I believe. I feel that I still have room, that this quest isn’t over. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to replicate the things that I liked and once I considered that I went further and I made my own version of these things, that often opened doors to a track I liked. But these were all momentary, matching the periods of time I was into a specific sound. I believe my distinctiveness will come once I’ll be able to go beyond replication and start from scratch without being biased to match something I idealize. But all of this is very subjective and very hard to achieve because I can’t switch off my brain to refer and mimic things I like.

memòri : You grow vegetables as part of your daily life outside the studio. Does that kind of physical, outdoor work feed your creative process, or does it pull you away from it?

C. Coiffure : I’ve never been able to fully deny the agricultural studies I made and I always wanted to find a balance between what started as a passion and what I considered as a thing that made sense. Now they are both a passion and a thing that makes sense to me, I am happy to have found a balance.

But there’s obviously some good and bad sides to it. Creatively speaking I often get to go field recording there. Concerning the mood I think it helps me to get out of the tunnel when I work on music, I can process things away from the screen, think of what I need to work on once I get back to a track etc. I’m really enjoying connecting more with another reality, with all the things happening at a different scale, like the interaction between organisms, the soil, the weather. It ties me down to earth (no pun intended once again). Because I think with music I would live too much on hopes and expectations and it’s very alienating. It’s hard to not think and worry about all the things gravitating around the music thing like social media, stats, algos etc. I’m feeling lucky to have a space out of it.

And on the other hand sometimes it’s frustrating because I just want to spend more time and energy in the music making or digging or helping with useless seconds stuff but some days or weeks it’s really challenging mentally and physically so I just can’t because the energy level is really low.

memòri : Have any DJs particularly impressed you recently? And producers?

C. Coiffure : I went to a local party here in Rennes last week-end with proper DIY vibes and sick weird music. I really really enjoyed it. Big up to local heroes DJ Ranium, Amor Leone & Xylo. I also want to mention two sets from the useless seconds events we ran this year so shout out to Nono Gigsta at our party at Ankali with the Amphibian Rec crew last February and Garçon at our Lyon event in March. Killer sets.

For producers I’m very into Katiusha’s sound at the moment. I love that twisted sound with a lot of things happening and catching attention. She’s working on something for useless seconds and we’re very happy to have her for a solo release. Besides that, some of my favorite recent releases are Damos Room’s album called All Shall Go on Long Gone, crazy one. Also Will Hofbauer’s Flurries on Rhythm Section, Rodja’s Third Force on XCPT, ARTISOMA’s Mobylya & Pulse Box EPs on YUKU, Re:ni & Biggabush’s Bass Is The Space on Ilian Tape, Gallegos’ MC on On Loop, Karim’s forthcoming album Lila on Tikita and Shackleton’s Euphoria Bound on AD93.

memòri : What's your thing right now? Any sounds or genres you've been digging into and excited to play?

C. Coiffure : I’ve been into discogs nerding a bit more over the past months. I have periods of time during which I want to dedicate more time to my collection. So these days I like to look for old school dance music stuff, like 90s/2000s techno, house, progressive house, trancy stuff, etc that can match with what I like. Also I always have an ear for UK Street Soul when digging around, this is a genre I deeply love.

memòri : Which contemporary label do you find most exciting right now?

C. Coiffure : Short Span is definitely one of the most inspiring to me at the moment. Crazy good quality music. Deep stuff, very dubby. Very contemporary, soundwise, fresh and innovative. I totally admire the sonic universe the label now represents with these artists coming from various places of the scene. And the connection feels even more personal because I’ve got to know and resonated with some of the artists released at various moments and places of my journey. Like there’s Yu Su and Central (on the label with his alias Picture) that I used to listen to during my deep house years in 2016-2017, there’s Angel Hunt that I used to listen during early Coiffure’s years in 2018-2019 and now they’ve just announced an album by K Wata which is a very sick deep and weird bass producer whose productions have been in rotation in my playlists over the past years. And there’s even Mount Kimbie on a compilation that I used to listen to a lot in the early 2010s. I love life when there’s little fortunate coincidences. Seeing dots connected in unexpected ways like this makes me happy.

memòri : useless seconds is described as both a label and a collective. What does the collective part actually mean in practice, beyond releasing music together ?

C. Coiffure : Well basically we try to have as much as possible a horizontal organization. We all have a voice concerning major decisions. That includes the releases, the line-up of our events, art direction, etc etc. It’s satisfying this way because we don’t get to feel that things get out of hand since most of us have a full-time job in addition to music so we need to adapt to everyone’s schedule for meetings, calls, etc. We prioritize this way of doing over the quantity of music we could release.

memòri : Any upcoming projects you're excited about and can tell us a little about ?

C. Coiffure : I’m currently working on some EPs and a remix for a friend’s label but everything is still at the demo/WIP stage. I also started to put tracks aside for some gigs this spring & summer. We also have some cool parties in the making with useless seconds and definitely looking to those!

memòri : You're playing memòri. Is there a track you'd want to share that captures the energy you're planning to bring that day?

C. Coiffure : Ramjac Corporation - Cameroon Massif! (Live At The Brain '09)

A +10min track with crazy vocals, an excessive use of sirens, some classic samples and a heavy load of live and electronic drums sums up pretty well the euphoric & psychedelic mood I want to drive people in. Proper closing day vibes.