France

For Each Song I Create a New Character

by Ben Richel


During my childhood in Savoie, France, most of my free time was devoted to one activity: imagination. I imagine grandiose destinies but also standard and common stories: From fishermen in the Philippines to Western rockstars, from 19th-century wars to post-collapse scenarios, from my Star Wars spin-offs to projecting myself on stage later… I could imagine revolutionary flying machines, and the same day imagine the realistic routine of the today’s French middle class (I am myself in the middle, like Malcolm!)

For me, everything is interesting.

My life has been built by imagining and connecting lives. It was obvious that one day I would invent characters, partly because expressing my whole personality cannot be done by simply embodying a predefined, cliché role given by society.

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A Sort of Musical Debris in the Form of Eight Tracks

by Hugo Espírito Santo

Hugo Espírito Santo


It all started for me in the mid-2000s as a pre-adolescent who had fallen in love with hip-hop culture in all its forms. After a few attempts at beatmaking throughout my teens, life eventually led me to cinema, visual arts, and abstract painting.

But the enthusiasm for (making) music never left—hence the debris EP. This project is the result of six months of experimenting with synths and plugins. It is a sort of musical debris in the form of eight tracks inspired by minimalism, time perception, and the soundscapes of daily life.

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If I Were To Have A Daemon, It Would Be A Squirrel

by Liv Luce

Liv Luce


Writing music has been a constant in my life. I was the kind of kid who sang constantly to myself, my friends, my parents, stuffed animals, anyone, anything. For a while, I had a pen pal with whom I’d exchange song lyrics. I’m pretty sure there was one about a baby swallow I tried and failed to nurse back to health in my parents’ attic.

I began taking piano lessons around the age of nine. Being an introvert, I spent many a school break in the music rooms playing and composing songs. Then, aged 12, I plucked up the courage to approach other musicians about forming a band. It was then that Suzie (guitarist in my first band, Caliber) introduced me to Radiohead and Nirvana. I learned bass and have been in bands ever since.

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The River Slowly Gets Drier

by Ben Richel

Ben Richel


In France, when I ask: “What kind of music do you listen to?” most people answer “J’écoute de Tout” (I’m listening to everything).

When people ask me what kind of music I do, I say “Le Tout”!

It’s my own musical genre, my philosophy. It’s an approach of reinforcing ties instead of retiring ourselves in a caricatural box behind some society walls.

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Kelebek Evrimi: Three Roads Coming into One

by Monti Karus

Kelebek Evrimi: Three Roads Coming into One by Monti Karus

Kelebek Evrimi at Menada, Skopje – Macedonia; from left to right: Monti Karus, Dejan Spasovic (guest), Katerina Dimistrovska and Umur Sadico

What happens when three traveling street musicians from different backgrounds come together into a single path for a brief snapshot of time? You get the culturally rich sound garden of the Kelebek Evrimi project.

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My crazy adventure as a street musician: a life-changing year

by Iris Johner

My crazy adventure as a street musician: a life-changing year by Iris Johner
It’s lost and heavy-hearted that I decided to settle down on my own in south Portugal in November 2017. After three years of travels around the world and a summer back to my hometown realizing time was flying and driving my dreams away from me, it appeared to be the perfect deal for a start over – as the one place I would most likely call home.

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Starting a revolution through music

by Lee Brickley

Starting a revolution through music by Lee Brickley
Are you sick and tired of war, inequality, racism, and injustice? Me too, and that’s why I write revolutionary protest songs. I wish I knew how to do more, but for now, I’m trying to make people think with my music because that’s what I do best.

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