9+1 Q&A with EXIIT

What inspired you to first start making music? And how did you come to be in your current incarnation? Or if you prefer, a brief bio about you.

The basis of our musical adventure… These are undoubtedly words, a sentence: “the moment in the absolute”. This quest is the unconscious starting point of our music. It is often, too often not successful. Or imperfect. We apologize by saying that the ambition is immense. An excuse is the start of a defeat … So let’s find out. Sometimes we approach it, like with the song A moment.

Nothing can be programmed and decide with conviction: “Today we are going to make a sensitive song! ” We are looking for the musical encounter that is within us. Too often there is nothing … So we have a drink, a coffee, we chat. This is also music 🙂 Our drawers are filled with bits of pieces, sounds. We produce a lot but we don’t release a lot of songs … Demanding and above all lazy, we are! Be careful, we don’t want to intellectualize our music! Getting lost consciously and with delight on songs like Ouamaya or Tuxedo is a real joy. “The moment in the absolute” may also be in these musical episodes 🙂

Provide us with some info about your latest release…

Our latest song feed me, we really like it! This song touches his soul with his words and his notes. Of course if it exists ☺… The quest continues! There is always a special feeling for the last little piece. It’s still ours, but he just left the house. The song will make his life, his lives. With Feed me, it is undoubtedly the first time that we have added our peaceful characters with our tireless cold anger towards the world in which we evolve. We love the production of the piece which is both fragile and powerful.

Which ones would you consider your main influences both music-wise & non-music-wise?

We are not young without being old! Our influences are linked to our history and our musical & friendly past. It is obvious that older groups or artists like Pink Floyd (period 1970/1976), Archive, Tuxedommon, The Stranglers, Erik Truffaz, Beatles, Blonde Redhead, Portishead, are part of our common heritage. In more recent musicians, we love the worlds of Fujiya Miyagi, Darkside, Alain Bashung…

In what way does your sound differ from the rest genre-related artists/bands and why should we listen to your music? In other words, how would you describe your sound?

Difficult to answer… One of our musician & writer friends (Laurent Cauville), had fun writing about our music. We like to believe that this is true 🙂 In any case, his words are very beautiful: “The music of EXIIT is best observed in the deep night or behind a pair of eyelids, where everyone can freely let images rise freely on the surface of time. It can make take off, plunge into open spaces labyrinthine tunnels, or cross the dry curtain of the Niagara Falls. Scientists diverge on this point. Or not. Black is the backdrop of EXIIT, on which the melodic scrolls gently vaporize their colors. also quite present in the video and photographic productions associated with the project. “

Please name your 3 desert islands albums, movies & books…

Albums: Passion (Peter Gabriel, Boiler Room NYC Live Set (DARKSIDE), Glory Box (Portishead)

Movies: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (James Thurber), Mulholland Drive (David Lynch), Je sais rien mais je dirai tout(Pierre Richard)

Books : The lost Vanguard (Richard Pare), Moral Letters to Lucilius (Seneca), The Years of Awakening (Krishnamurti)

Do you prefer studio or performing live and why?

Cheese or dessert ? We really want to answer both :).
The pleasure of building a song, giving yourself time to reflect, try, make a mistake… Come back, change everything, erase. Start again and finally (sometimes!), after long weeks (or months) of hesitation and doubts, finding what you are not looking for is a deliverance. An inner nirvana. Live is just the opposite. The intensity, the moment, the inevitable and non-concealable error, the music that is released and rises to heaven! It’s an immediate jubilant pleasure and unfortunately too short …

Is there any funny-unique story you would like to share with us, always in relation to your music ‘career’?

I’m a little ashamed but it’s pretty funny. During a concert, we played one of our songs with bass and guitar that were not tuned. At the end of the song, we said to ourselves: “this version was great!”. We should probably play more often like this 🙂

Which track of your own would you point out as the most unique and why?

A moment. Without doubt our most sincere, fairest, most sensitive, most uncontrolled track. Its history is also very special. We only played this song once live, at one time. Fortunately, the recording at the studio was ON. We were looking, we were hesitating … And the piece magically descended along our fingers. This music, this song had passed by us. We were the servants of the piece, A moment had kidnapped our soul. Then he left … We never managed to play it with the same intensity … But we have a trace, this audio testimony.

Would you like to share with our readers your future plans?

The album is under construction. We already have 7 to 8 titles. We plan to finish the last 3 titles by the end of the year. But, we don’t force things. We have no constraints. Finally if, we have an obligation, it is the sincerity of the pieces. A live project is underway for May 2021. It will be the meeting of the EXIIT group with a young artist SHAAMU. We are writing new songs exclusively for the live show, which will be presented at a contemporary art festival.
All these new musical pieces will be inspired by the sound materials that we will find at the exhibition / concert venue. An improbable sound adventure in perspective 🙂

Free question!!! (Ask yourself a question) you wish to answer and haven’t been given the opportunity…

Who would you like to collaborate with?

EXIIT is a collective, evolving and transmissible musical project. We are always looking to be jostled in our music or video projects. We are looking for accomplices: musicians, singers, image artists, who wish to share moments of creation with us. So to answer the question, it is not a particular person we are looking for but rather energies. The EXIIT door is an entrance 🙂

Photo credits: Steven Paters

Curated by: Christos Doukakis

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