‘Explorer’ by Almeeva | Interview | “There’s enough beauty in the world to ease your pain”
Exclusive video premiere of ‘Explorer’ by multi-instrumentalist and producer Almeeva aka Gregory Hoepffner.
Hoepffner is active behind many projects including Jean Jean, Sure, Kabbel and collaborations such as remixes for Health, Bachar Mar Khalifé, La Jungle, Bernard Szajner et cetera. His music was featured in TV series Drive To Survive, Shameless, the Olympics, a full length movie about Japanese bondage and even the most epic commercial for a world class toilet brand.
Director of video, Philippe Thimel says: “The idea of the video came from a conversation between Romain (DOP) and I, about exploring bittersweet feelings one can have after things end, and the struggle to move on. We’ve decided on the split screen concept to explore past and present, with the character visiting places filled with memories of a woman he loved. Going through his regrets and facing what’s left of her, he is eventually able to edit a small clip of her to move on. The cinematography of the video was inspired by films such as Blue Valentine, we wanted some rough shots of them walking on Paris winter streets. We shot it in a few hours without rehearsal to keep it real. Hoping the clip is showing that relationships end, but that they are shaping you, so you need to accept it and let go to do what you are meant to do.”
Following a few releases for InFiné (Rone, Carl Craig, Apparat…), this EP is spawned by a new life in Sweden, and a redeeming encounter with producer extraordinaire Christoffer Berg (Fever Ray, The Knife, Robyn, Depeche Mode…), who now shares his studio with Gregory.
With his pop-demons out of the way thanks to the recent side-project Kabbel, Almeeva can finally stop trying to fit into boxes or genres. Opener ‘To All My Friends’ mixes Euro-Dance euphoria with Ryuichi Sakamoto’s buddhist poetry, while ‘Explorer’ pays homage to trans artist Beverly Glenn-Copeland, carrying its universal message on a piano-house journey: “Do it, just do what you’re called to do. It doesn’t matter if anybody wants it, explore it anyway”. ‘Ever Out Weatherall’ slides from club to club, and ends with a post-punk celebration, hands up towards the late Andrew Weatherall. ‘Slowly Fading’ concludes with a final church mashup, featuring the hypnotizing vocals of Diane Pellotieri (from the slowcore band Pencey Sloe), over a modular beat improvised with the inevitable Christoffer Berg.
Almeeva paves his own way, following a new mantra: stop making plans, and capture the magic when it’s there. At the end of the road could be a promised fantasy, fueled by a long year in isolation: a safe space where everyone is invited to relive moments of shared ecstasy.
“There’s enough beauty in the world to ease your pain”
How did you first get interested in music? What led you to become a multi-instrumentalist?
Gregory Hoepffner: I grew up in a pretty “pop obsessed” family, so I was exposed to a lot of music early on. But I think the real turning point was video games, and having access to music editing software on the computer. As a teenager I was trying to make my own video games, and they needed soundtracks, that was the first entry into music making. But I was way too introverted to even consider playing music with other people, it seemed like a sacred world where I didn’t belong. So learning different instruments was a way to cope with that fear of being rejected. Later on, all the bands I was playing with offered different roles to fill, that’s when it really became a thing.
On which instrument are you the most relaxed?
Even though I don’t get to practice anymore, I would still say the drums. It’s my first instrument, the only one where I feel like I could “jam” in any situation.
You’re a very busy man working on many different projects and also doing a lot of collaborations. Would you mind telling us what are some of the latest?
I’ll try to keep it short and sweet! With my dark wave / post punk band Sure, we’ve just released a new EP called ‘Nineteen Years‘. Earlier last year, I’ve launched a new solo project called Kabbel, which I defined as “queer sadcore”, and released a first EP called ‘End Of Norms‘.
For 2022, there’s quite a few things coming:
There will be a new Almeeva EP in collaboration with the band Toucan. My band Jean Jean will release a new album, and hopefully hit the road again.
We’ve got a new EP ready with Ghoster, my gritty electronic duo.
On the production side, I’m finishing work on the Julien Appalache album, classy and psych French-pop. And some other secret things cooking …
What can you tell us about your latest release, ‘To All My Friends’? Was there a certain aspect you were trying to reach? A concept?
Quite the opposite to be honest. I was most of all trying to find joy in the process of making music again, after a few years of wanting to please everyone and losing hope in it. Just going with whatever felt exciting and free, and not following any kind of trend. I wanted to make an EP that would be an “easy & fun” listen, rather than something too serious or ambitious. It was a cure for toxic ambitions.
Tell us about your collaboration with Christoffer Berg and what led you to share a studio together?
I first approached him because I wanted him to produce an album, which didn’t happen in the end, for various reasons. But we quickly became friends, and he offered this opportunity to share his studio, which was good timing I guess. He’s one of the sweetest persons I’ve ever met. Having his trust on my musical abilities was really redeeming, it brought me back to a happier place. I’m so grateful to have access to this studio, I’ve already learned so much in this place. The room we share is located inside a big and beautiful studio called Svenska Grammafon, loaded with amazing vintage gear. I had dreamed of that place long before moving to Sweden. That’s where Foals recorded their ‘Total Life Forever’ album, to give you an idea.
How’s life in Sweden?
It’s really great. Moving from Paris, I was reluctant to live in a smaller city, but I have absolutely no regrets. I enjoy daily life much more, the access to nature, the calm, the fact that everything is 15 minutes away, being lost in translation… I moved just a few months before Covid started, so it was bound to change anyway, the Paris that I could miss isn’t there anymore. Only friends are missed, and a good part of them have also moved out of Paris by now.
When did you first encounter music by Ryuichi Sakamoto?
It was part of an exercise. I wanted to expand my music knowledge out of my comfort zone, so I dived into as many “great composers” as I could, and fell in love with his ‘Async’ album. It’s so difficult to convey emotions with minimalism, but this album is deeply touching, even though it’s very abstract and modern. I kind of pay homage to the song ‘Life, Life’ in the title track ‘To All My Friends’, the part of the poem that goes, “To one side from ourselves, to one side from the world, Wave follows wave to break on the shore. On each wave is a star, a person, a bird. Dreams, reality, death – on wave after wave”. It’s a beautiful image of life and death, very soothing. It’s a reminder that even though our conscience tells us to consider life with a beginning and an end, we are part of something bigger than us, that will always be.
“In dreams your emotions are very intense”
Would you mind sharing a technical side of the EP making?
For the track ‘Church Of Ecstasy’, I wanted to play with the concept of time alteration. This idea actually came in a dream. In dreams your emotions are very intense, everything is so theatrical and overplayed, and I wanted to capture that feeling with something more interesting than just a boring time-stretch. So I tried to build my own time altering machine, sending signals into different plugins, pedals, machines. When I found the right sound, I sent whole finished songs into the FX chain, just to see if something interesting came out. The original track that became ‘Church Of Ecstasy’ was totally different, it was a dark old school techno track, with a choir moment at the end. The choir was almost the only thing that made it through the time machine. You know when you go to a party with friends, and a few years later everyone remembers something different about that night. It was like the machines decided it was the only memory that should be kept from this song. That is the most human experience to me, selective memory.
Do you think emotions are easier to transcribe via music or video? How satisfied are you with the result?
I’d say it’s easier with music, because it leaves more space and mystery to fill in with your own imagination, and your imagination is probably less constrained than an indie-DIY music video. But if you have an unlimited budget and team, of course it’s possible to create an amazing video that will make a shitty song very emotional [laughs]. I’m super happy and impressed with what Philippe did on ‘Explorer’. Being a control freak on the visual aspect, it’s hard to trust someone else with a video, but he did something I could never have done. The actors are great, the photography is superb, it really feels like a movie to me. And it’s his interpretation of Beverly Glenn Copeland’s words, which adds another layer to the song. I’m very very grateful for his work.
I really enjoy the combination of clips and music. Would you like to share the technical aspect of video making?
I cannot speak for this video, as Philippe did everything himself and I had absolutely nothing to do with it, which I LOVED! I have kind of a love/hate relationship with making music videos… I’ve been making them for 12 years, and it’s always a mad dance between expectations and results. Now that anyone can have access to a camera or a phone, I think the technical aspect of shooting doesn’t really matter anymore… It’s more a question of having the right idea that fits the mood of the song, and knowing how to work with what you have: locations you can use, people who can act, your knowledge of lighting, editing, post production… a music video is how you handle all those things. Nowadays if I have to work on a music video, I’ll use it as an excuse to learn new techniques, so I can have some fun in the process. Right now I’m learning how to do hand-drawn animation, we’ll see how that works out.
So you would agree that lockdown was fruitful for you and your music making?
It was in the sense that it killed all my dreams with one blow, and that I had to get my shit together to start again [laughs]. But honestly I had it easy being in Sweden, because we never had a proper lockdown here. When the first global lockdown happened, I was temporarily living on an island with my partner, in an amazing house by the sea. It was hard not having any future as a musician anymore, but it was an incredible place to figure myself out and experiment. There was a lot of trying and failing, lot’s of bits and pieces I’m still working on to this day. But the track ‘Ever Out Weatherall’ was finished there.
Do you have any active side-projects going on at this point?
At some point I wanted to shoe-horn too many things into Almeeva, and having different projects helps pushing different directions without making compromises, I think. Now I can focus on just being an electronic music producer as Almeeva, which is quite a playground already. Aside from Almeeva there’s Kabbel, which is kind of the “evil twin” side, allowing me to play with more extreme sounds, and being a proper singer. It’s a continuation of my alternative/hardcore years playing in bands. At the moment I’m working on songs that fit none of the above… more classic “songwriter” stuff, that I started writing for different artists, but did not make the cut. So I guess there will be a third side-project soon [laughs].
Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums.
I’ll leave the big names and oldies out of it, and link them to my past/present projects to make it a bit more interesting!
Shora – ‘Malval’
If you like time traveling, listen to this album immediately. One of the most timeless records for me, could be from ’72 or last week. How to describe it… post-prog ? No, it’s way better. Even more mind boggling as their previous releases were mad harsh-mathcore (great stuff also). When this came out, I was starting to play with my hardcore band Time To Burn, and we were all obsessed with this album. So much so that we ended up going to Switzerland to record with the same producer, which was an amazing experience when you’re just 22 and you’ve never been in a real studio.
Kindness – ‘World, You Need a Change of Mind’
The three Kindness albums are flawless, but this one is still my favorite. Such a fresh take on pop, funk, electronic music, with Zdar’s amazing production. This album and Phoenix’s Wolfgang made me dream of one day working with Philippe Zdar. At that time, he was actually my neighbor in Montmartre. I used to regularly bump into him at our local supermarket, super awkward and not knowing how to approach him. I eventually met him in 2019. While I was absolutely starstruck and out of words, he was really warm and funny. I spent 30 minutes trying to pitch him my album project, but finally gave up and started walking away. And just as I was leaving the room, he turned back and shouted, “Hey! Where are you going? I didn’t give you my email yet, you HAVE to send me your stuff, or else you know you’re gonna regret it!!”. That gave me so much energy to work on my demos. He died just a few weeks after I sent him some songs. It was a very sad period for lots of other reasons as well, but I’ll never forget that moment.
Downliners Sekt – ‘Silent Ascent’
It might be my favorite electronic music album of all time. Such a unique sound, minimal and yet very human and emotional. It was way ahead of it’s time, and still sounds super relevant today. It came out on InFiné, which was my label for a few years. They signed me the same year as this album came out, so it was incredibly exciting for me to be part of that family. Half of the duo is now releasing music again as Controverse, and you can definitely hear the same space in the new releases.
Tame Impala – ‘Currents’
It’s already popular enough, but I have to talk about this one. First time hearing ‘Let It Happen’ was such a mind blow. It simply made rock/pop exciting again, it was everything the genre needed at that moment. Basslines became important again. And from a production point of view, I was so happy to see a single person achieve that. To think that you could possibly record and produce a whole album by yourself in a house, and change the world, is the absolute dream to me. This one was the soundtrack to my band Kid North’s album ‘New Waters’, in which we were knee-deep and over our heads at the time. It was a big failure in many ways, which cured any drive to overproduce indie records from now on [laughs].
Blood Orange – ‘Freetown Sound’
This album really messed me up, I was NOT ready for this. If ‘Currents’ brought back the fun, ‘Freetown Sound’ brought back the artistic ambition in the pop world. It carried a lot of hope for me, “ohhhh you’re allowed to do THAT ?!” – while I kind of had given up on making pop music. This album feels so free, untouched by any trend or need to be “cool”. It opened up my artistic taste a lot.
The Asphodells – ‘Ruled By Passion, Destroyed By Lust’
Favorite Andrew Weatherall project. If this was playing in clubs, I would have been out all the time. Listening to this album is like getting a high, without the comedown. Amazing basslines, super simple and catchy. I read a lot about Andrew Weatherall when he died, which inspired me to finish the track ‘Ever Out’, so I paid homage in the title.
Arca – ‘Arca’
No doubt that Arca is one of the most talented persons on the planet right now. If you like dark and moody music, this album is an immersive new world to explore. It was vocally very inspiring to start my project Kabbel, knowing that it was built around vocal improvisations.
Beverly Glenn Copeland – ‘Transmissions’
Discovering the music and story of Beverly Glenn Copeland was life-changing. His music offered beauty, and his words much needed relief about how to be an artist. When the business tells you, “you should want more, you should work harder, be smarter and jump at every opportunity to be on top”, Glenn Copeland says, “you should follow your heart, because one day the world will be aligned with it”. That’s a message I wanted to share in the truest form possible. I’m incredibly grateful to have his voice on my track ‘Explorer’.
Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?
I’d recommend Front De Cadeaux – ‘Supreme Rallentato’ mixtapes (1 to 5), very addictive stuff. It’s been labeled as “slow rave”, which is pretty accurate: slow, groovy, dirty, and veeeeeeeery deep.
Thank you. Last word is yours.
There’s enough beauty in the world to ease your pain.
Almeeva Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Bandcamp / YouTube / Apple Music / Spotify / SoundCloud
Baciami Disques Official Website / Facebook / Instagram
