Dear readers, we are pleased to offer you in this article an interview with an eclectic French artist who combines Canterbury, Jazz, Prog and Electro sounds. We welcome Matziz from the M’Z project.
Hi, how are you?
“Hello and thank you very much for the exchange with you. It’s pretty good, in the middle of a promo period, but with a lot of concerts in parallel so the balance is good, after the political situation in France is relatively catastrophic and the rise of authoritarianism and neo-liberal despotism more generally is rather worrying, but fortunately music softens manners…I hope it’s going well for you too“
You are an eclectic artist, combining different genres and styles, how did your passion for music come about?
“I come from a family where music has a fairly important place, my father is a bass player (a little (too) retired at the moment), my mother also participated in certain shows that were organized by friends who were passionate about music and with a fairly strong social fiber. There have always been instruments and concerts or shows that have animated our weekends/holidays. So I think I didn’t really have a choice, in addition to that music has always been a way for me to express myself, I’m not very socially comfortable, the field of creation has always been a safe place where speech was free and could not offend (at least at the time of creation)“
You offer a genre that mixes progressive sounds with Canterbury, Jazz and Electro, how did your passion for these sounds come about?
“Overall, the aesthetics of music as such have never been the primary driving force that could attract me to this or that style of music, apart from punk and metal as a teenager looking for a tribe. Overall, I started from a fairly rock musical universe and as I met people and needed to have a broader message, I naturally started to meet musicians who broadened my ear and made me discover progressive rock (in the broad sense), jazz (also in the broad sense), electronic music that scared me when I was younger, before taking the measure of the organic poetry it contains and a little bit of avant-garde and performance music.“
You are the creator of M’Z, an original idea to create this project that combines classical sounds with the world of modern electronics, what can you tell us about it?
“The idea of merging progressive music with electro/IDM came as a matter of course, after the collapse of the group La théorie des cordes, in which I had put a lot of energy and hopes. I had in the back of my mind for about ten years at that time (2017) the desire to make an album that would draw a parallel between colors, musical colors and feelings. Initially I thought this album would be much more based around simple structures, rather jazzy with asymmetrical metrics and trances around the bass riffs with little writing and a lot of improvisation for the other instruments and I obviously realized the opposite, a fairly written album that goes in a lot of directions… At that time I had developed a project (Matziz) which only produces electronic trip-hop IDM music. It was partly by practicing on this project that I took the measure of the organic side of this music. So I thought that doing a project that would mix electro and prog rock could be interesting, especially starting from my (totally biased) initial assumption that electro is cold and guitar is hot, so M would be the lively/dreamy side, impulsive, in search of emotion and real moments, this guitar that sometimes improvises and Z would be the machine, the inevitable, the metronome, the cold, electronic rhythm, the relentless analysis and quest for perfection but without room for maneuver. Obviously the goal was to shatter this assumption and finish the album without knowing who, M or Z, was the machine or the dreamer.“
The new album ‘Émancipés Du Vide?’ will be released on September 20, 2024, how would you describe this project?
“This is an album that aims to be a melancholic reflection on the emotional chasms that humans maintain, on the difficulty we have in extricating ourselves from our various attractions towards nothingness, or drama, on our inability to look at the mental waste that we produce without going through the guilt box, it is a critique of normalization, conformism, hollow positivism praised by our overly marketed minds and in search of the fastest path to any Meaning. The illusion of being free in a world that praises platitudes erected as values supposed to embody this freedom and yet located twenty thousand leagues below what could be a beginning of a path towards effective freedom. Finally, it symbolizes the vital necessity of finding our lost naivety and of relearning to see the beautiful and to work in this direction.“
Sophisticated tracks both in sound and writing, how does the creative process of your music take place?
“For this album, it was the melodies that guided the creative process.
I had set myself a limited time for composition, I did not think about the meaning or the feeling directly and I let the melodies express themselves, without any analysis at the start, I also tried to break with some of my composition reflexes to try to surprise myself a little and test new things, although I work obsessively with reassuring recurring elements that sometimes dot my compositions. At first the pieces did not have these titles, it was after several cold listens and after several discussions with friends of the artistic collective ‘La Barraque’ that the concept of the album was born, but this time it was exclusively inspired by the sound as a starting point (this is not always the case, for prisme it is the concept only that directed and the pieces were built with a precise intention, for the last album to date, la civilisation de la graine, it is a bit of both I had a concept but quite vague and some pieces were also suggested by melodies in my head… in short, each album has its own way of doing things) Another thing that is quite recurrent, in the periods when I create, I listen to a lot of refuge music, some of the albums that I consider essential in my balance (Plaid, John scofield, Gong, Zappa, Truffaz, Bill frisell, Mr Bungle, Magma, Julien Lourau…) and I think that influences me too…“
A video has been extracted for “La Grâce De La Solitude Ou L’Anxiété Sociale“ are you planning any other singles to anticipate the release of the abum?
“I plan to release a video per month and a video taken from the album ’emancipés du vide’ once every 2 months (the rest of the time it will be tracks taken from my live set made of old tracks), but I don’t plan to release other tracks between now and the release, unless some friendly radio stations want to broadcast some exclusives? You never know? Otherwise I will probably put one last track up for listening a few days before the official release.“
It is your fourth studio album, how has your sound evolved over time?
“Ha ha I am in no position to know how my sound has evolved, or even if it has evolved… I tried for this album to be less in ‘The War of Sound’ and to leave a little more room for dynamics…
As for the reference albums that I listened to for inspiration, I think I tended a little more towards the 70’s jazz fusion side than towards my metal leanings (I admit to having sanded down a lot of Erik Truffaz albums, especially the song Wilfrid which gives me chills every time I listen to it…)
Now I’m waiting to have feedback from other people because between what I hope for at the beginning, what I realize and the feelings after listening to other people, there are a lot of stories of perception.“
Is this a studio-only project or will there be a chance to hear your music live as well?
“No, it’s a Live project!! A lot of the poetry of this project is better transcribed live, I hope to play it as much as possible!!
I regularly update the dates on my site here (‘Date’ tab):
https://mzprisme.wixsite.com/mz-musique
And frankly I’m very motivated to play everywhere, invite me 😉“
What advice would you give to young artists approaching music with more sophisticated sounds like yours?
“Ha ha, I would certainly have as much to learn from them as I could advise them, but i would say, you are crazy, but you are right, keep producing authentic sound, the world needs originality, don’t lose your singularity for accessible music that will certainly not interest algorithms, and became boring for anyone else’s ears, even if the music market tries to make you believe it, they only need to sell and you are not a product… let’s keep making sound for souls first and foremost!! Also thank you for offering sophisticated sound, today it seems that it has become an act of resistance.“
Music is constantly evolving, how do you see the Prog music scene in your country and more generally nowadays?
I don’t really know, it’s very difficult to make evolving, instrumental or complex music whatever the chosen aesthetic…
In France, there are quite a few groups that are really great (the label dur et doux is a great stable but the baron de vincese is also very cool, jack dupon, baron crâne…) Internationally too Polymath, Lydian collective, Panzerballet… A lot of band are making great prog or affiliate music…
We should perhaps manage to unite a little more to find a more global dimension of evolving music in a broad sense and without a label that is too connotative (and in fact relatively opposed to the music industry as music should be) to exchange more and give more resonance to these movements, became more united and in a sharing mood to end up this selfish world.“
Do you have any other passions or artistic activities outside music?
“Ha ha I’m quite obsessive, but I also really like love felling and taking time to nourish my romantic relationship, also video games, social struggle, walking (going mushroom picking at the moment), quality cooking, and real moments shared with other people, but not a basic social exchange, which I find exhausting, it’s nice when it’s with a person we like or with whom we have common passions and when the exchange is therefore sincere…laugh, laze around, observe nature, let your mind wander…“
I thank Matziz for the interview and wish him all the best for the release of his new album and the continuation of his artistic career.
“Thank you very much for the invitation, good luck and thank you very much for your most vital work!!“
