INTERVIEW: Pierre Chandeze - Carton Sonore (France)

We are proud and excited to announce that - after a year concentrating on only releasing music by bands and individuals associated with the Scottish Borders Underground Scene - Sparks From The Mothership is, in 2020, going all international, kicking off with the release of the excellent single Partir au Soleil (Unifié) by the Paris based outfit, Carton Sonore. The man behind the curtain of Carton Sonore is Pierre Chandeze, an occasional collaborator with Paul Vickers (one-time frontman of Dawn Of The Replicants). As with all of Sparks From The Mothership's digital downloads, all proceeds from sales of Partir au Soleil (Unifié) will be donated to the Food Bank charity, The Trussell Trust.

PARTIR AU SOLEIL
J'ai mis ma tête
dans une boîte aux lettres
mais je n'ai pas vu le soleil
Mon corps est resté coincé
je n'ai pas pu voyager

Pa-pa-partir !

J'ai mis ma tête
dans une boîte aux lettres
mais je n'ai pas vu la mer

Mon corps est resté coincé
je n'ai pas pu m'en aller

Pa-pa-partir !


OFF TO THE SUN
I put my head into a mailbox
But I did not see the sun
My body got stuck
I could not travel
(Not) leave

I put my head into a mailbox
But I did not see the sea
My body got stuck
I could not leave
(Not) leave

 
CARTON SONORE / PIERRE CHANDEZE INTERVIEW

Hello, Pierre! Who is involved in Carton Sonore? Is it mostly just you with occasional collaborators, or would you see this as a band in the traditional sense?

Hello! It is just me but it happened to be a band for some time. When I started Carton Sonore it was only a recording project. I used to record directly what was coming to my mind. I was my own band. Then a band, called Mondrian, asked me one day to open for them so some friends joined me to form a band and we worked on new music made for, and by the band. It stopped for many reasons: baby, geographic separation... I love to play with people but it needs organization. I think last time someone joined Carton Sonore was when I did covers of Dogbowl and Beauty Pill, my musician friend going under the name Orouni came to my home to add some things.

We think that Carton Sonore has an original sound - quite alternative or even experimental but you make use of the kinds of acoustic instruments that are more traditionally used in Folk Music. How would you describe your sound?

I don’t know because lately it went in many different directions. My first idea was to make instrumental lo-fi music with no electric instruments, or almost. Now I have some pop songs like Partir Au Soleil but also some noise tracks. It works by concepts, starts with an idea, even stupid ones sometimes. I like to see where it brings me. Modarn was supposed to be a random composition, i have an EP dedicated to the Casio digital horn, Vucub Caquix is a noise symphony... Then there are the Petits Thèmes albums: short compositions using many instruments from folk music, some considered as toys, some are just the ‘ordinary’ ones, like guitar, bass and I play drums on pillows, chairs or boxes.

Were there any specific influences on Carton Sonore? Which music, films, books or art would you put in your Top Ten list?

Very hard to say, Marshmallow Coast's early albums like Timesquare were a big influence in the beginning, also the bands I was hanging with: Top Montagne, Kawaii... Then Moondog, The Calchakis (Andean music my father used to listen to when I was a kid), Animal Collective, Jean-Jacques Perrey, The Residents and many others. A movie? Maybe The Cabinet Of Dr. Calligari, I like its atmosphere and its aesthetics.

 

What's your background? Did you grow up in Paris or did you gravitate there from somewhere else?

Born in Paris and still living there. I don’t know if it has influenced my music though it probably did somehow. We live in small spaces and if we don’t have the money to rent a practice room we have to make music at home, without disturbing the neighbours. That’s why my music is not very aggressive I guess.

Do you draw much influence in your lyrics from French language songs or poetry?

It took me some time to sing in French. I didn’t like the lyrics in all the French music I knew (the shit on TV). I had the chance to meet people who showed me different ways of writing in French, from the humour and spontaneity of David Snug when I played saw in Top Montagne, to the poetry of Geneviève Castrée when I discovered Ô Paon opening for Mount Eerie. I try to find my own way.
  

We saw a BBC documentary a few years ago about French songwriters and it seemed to be saying that in French Popular song the lyrical content has tended to have more emphasis than the music - for example in Serge Gainsbourg's work. Would you agree with that?

We listen to a lot of artists singing in English here in France. I believe that when you’re French and listen to French songs the lyrics seem to take more ‘space’ because it is in your own language. Also there were good French lyricists that still are main references for musicians here, why not? Some people want to be the new Gainsbourg, some people want to be the new Piaf, some the new Brel or Brassens. Some people should move on and be themselves. That is also a choice to introduce French songwriters like this, a choice that maybe reveals what we expect more than what it really is, a choice that builds our representations and guides the trend.

Why do you think that a lot of the individuals associated with the New York / CBGBs Punk scene - e.g. Patti Smith, Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine - were so drawn to Symbolist poets such as Rimbaud and Baudelaire?

These artists would tell better than me! I wasn’t in New-York in the 70s and not even born but they probably found in Rimbaud’s poetry something of their daily life, parallels between ‘A season in hell’ and New-York a hundred years later.

We first heard your work through your Paul & Pierre collaborations with our friend, Paul Vickers, the ex-Dawn Of The Replicants frontman. How did you discover each other, how did your collaboration work, and did you ever meet?

That was the golden age of myspace. I loved Dawn Of The Replicants and still do. I think we really started exchanging messages after Paul commented on a video I made for Carton Sonore. We met some years ago in Edinburgh and I want to come back since then because I have good memories of the city. It was fun to have Paul and Mary as local ‘touristic guides’. We work very simply. I send him music, he sends me back a vocal recording. It’s always surprising because Paul has this ability to fully appropriate a song. It is not just a voice added to the song, it is a reinvention. If I had the money I would make a proper release for some of these songs.

Could you tell us a bit about With A Messy Head? Is this your own record label? Do you take a DIY / Punk approach to this? What is your philosophy for how to make a mark on the 21st Century as a label?

With A Messy Head is everything and nothing, it is the home of everything I do related to art. I release my music under With A Messy Head but I also talk about the music I love under this name on my blog. It started when I began to help some people to play in Paris around 2008. This name appeared on my posters and I opened my blog to post drawings and some Carton Sonore compositions that ended in the first Petits Thèmes before I changed its direction to write about music. Since then my fanzines, videos, compilations of indie music... are all labelled With A Messy Head. I use to say that With A Messy Head is the name of my inability to focus on one thing at a time. There’s not much philosophy, it’s very spontaneous. I’m not looking for fame, I’m doing what I like hoping maybe some people will like it too but I’m not looking for what people like. Most of the indie webzines for example share the same bands, music, artists which is not exciting even if the music is good. I prefer to write on my blog about unknown artists, and good ones of course. Maybe nobody cares but it’s like I have to do it. Like I have to record my own music and ideas.

At SFTM we are particularly interested in the ways in which the more avant garde ideas of Modernism, Post-Modernism and Contemporary Art can fuse with Popular Culture and traditional forms, as happened last century for example when the Velvets met Warhol, or Artrock happened, or when Punk co-opted the attitude and aesthetics of DADA and Situationism. Can you see a place for this kind of cross-fertilization in the 21st Century between what is in English known as the "high brow" and the "low brow"? Is this mixing of the experimental and the more mainstream something you aspire to do with your own music?

Some people try to make ‘experimental’ music, they want something that sounds really new but in the end it is just always the same idea of ‘something new’. Well, I’m not talking about the experimental music scene but the indie one, Most of the time it consists in bringing together things that were not together before, like if it’s just a matter of additions. A few artists really bring something new. Sometimes you can’t tell what it is, you just feel there is something different.

In the 60’s a lot of new ideas came up in art, like in the previous decades in fact. Many artistic movements appeared, but then it slowly turned into more individual, personal research. Now it seems every artist is his own movement. What was the last revolution in contemporary art? The last things that changed the way artists consider or produce art? Maybe programming but that’s technology, music didn’t need contemporary art to use it.

Talking about my music I would say that yes, I try to mix experimental things with pop melodies, just because my ideas don’t fit in only one or the other. It is experimental because I don’t know what I’m doing. I compose and record at the same time in general and I consider that a bad idea can be a good idea if you try it. I like the idea of playing an instrument or music. We don’t do music, we play. There’s always a part of experimentation when we play.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer our questions, Pierre. 

LINKS: 

Carton Sonore on Bandcamp: https://cartonsonore.bandcamp.com

Lullabies from Outer-Space, A Low-fidelity Odyssee: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL--ED8MuQfxDemY4FpqYTs3V6FQDpxIJi

With A Messy Head website:

http://www.withamessyhead.com

Blog:

https://withamessyhead.blogspot.com